The Newhampshire gazetteer — Exeter, N.H., 1791-11-12 00:00:00, page 1

3 houses, fends two members ; and the
town of Manchester, which contains up
wards of sixty thousand fouls, is not ad
mitted to fend any. Is there any prin
ciple in these things ? Is there any thing
by which you can trace the remarks of
freedom, or discover those of wisdom ?
No wonder then Mr.B. has declined the
comparison, and endeavoured to lead
his readers from the point by a wild
unfyftematical dilplay of paradoxical
jhapfodies.
The French constitution fays, that
the National Assembly shall be elected
every two years. What article will Mr.
Burke place against this ? Why,^ that
the nation has no right at all in the
case : that the government is perfectly
arbitrary with the refpeCt to this point ;
and he can quote for his authority, the
precedent of a former parliament.
The French constitution fays, there
shall be no game laws ; that the farmer
FROM these parliamentaries I pro
ceed to draw some companion^.
I have already spoken of the declarati
on of rights ; and as I mean to be as
concise as possible, I /hall proceed to
other parts of the French conftittition.
The Conftitutibn of France fays, that
every man who pays a tax of sixty sous
per annum (zs. and 6d. Engtifh)is an
eledor. What article will Mr. Burke
place against this ? Can any thing be
more limited,at the fame time more ca
pricious, than what the qualifications
of electors are in England ? Limited—
becaufe not one man in an hundred (I
speak within compafi) is admitted to
vote : Capricious—because the lowed
character that can be fappofed.to exist,
and who has not so much as the visible
means of an houeft livelihood, is an
elector in feme places ; while, in other
places, the man who pays very large
taxes, and with a fair known character,
and the farmer who rents to the amount
of three or four hundred pounds a year,
and with a property on that farm to
three or four times that amount, is not
admitted to be an elector. Every thing
is out of nature, as Mr. Burke fays on
another occasion, in this strange chaos,
& all forts of follies are blended with all
fores of crimes. William the conquer
or and his defeendents parcelled out the
country in this manner, and bribed one
part of it by what they caled Char
ters, to hold the other parts of it the
better fubjeded to their will. This is
the reason why so many of thofe;charters
abound in Cornwall, The people were
averse to the government eftabfifhed at
the conquest, and the towns were gari
foned and bribed to enslave the coun
try. All the old Charters are the bad
ges of this conquest, and it is from this
source that the capriciousness of eledion
EXETER%Ity-H^^) Printed and Published by HENRY RANL^T, at Nine Shillings per annum.
Being an ANSWER to Mr.
Burke's ATTACK on the
FRENCH REVOLUTION.
By Thomas Paine,
Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Congress
in the American War, and Author of
the Work entitled Common Senjk.
Newhampfhire
arises. ~
The French constitution fays, that the
number of reprenfentatives for any place
shall be in a ratio to the number of tax
able inhabitants or electors. What ar
ticle will Mr. Burke place against this ?
The county of Yorkihire, which con
tains near a million of fouls, fends two
county members ; and so does the coun-
ty of Rutland, which contains not an
hundreth part of that number. The
town of old Serum, which contains npt
RIGHTS of MAN:
SATURDAY, November 12, 1791.]
[ln continuation.]
In these chartered monopolies, a man
earning from another part of the coun
try, is hunted from them as if he were
a foreign enemy. An Englishman. is
not free of his own country : every one
of those places presents a barrier in his
way, and tells him he is not a freeman
—that he has no right. Within these
monopolies are other monopolies. In
a city, such for instance as Bath, which
contains between 20 and 30 thousand
inhabitants, the right of electing repre
sentatives to parliament is monopolifed
into about thirty one persons. And
within these monopolies are still others.
A man even of the fame town, whose
parents were not in circumstances to
give him an occupation, is debared,io
many cases, from the natural right of
acquiring one, be his genious or indus
try what it may..
Are these things examples to hold
out tea country regenerating itfelf from
slavery, like France ? Certainly they
are not ; and certain am I, that when
the people of England come to reflect
upon them, they will, like France, an
nihilate those badges of ancient oppref,
fion, those traces of a conquered nati
on. Had Mr. Burke possessed talents
similar to the author " On the Wealth
of Nations," he would have comprehen
ded all the parts which enter into it,
and, by aff^mblage, form a constitution.
He would have reasoned from minutiae
to magnitude, ft is not from his pre
judices only, but from the disorderly
cast of his genius, that he is unfitted
for the lubje& he writes upon. Even
his genius is without a constitution. It
is a genius at random, and not a geni
us condituted. But he must fay some
thing—he has therefore mounted in the
air like a balloon, to draw the eyes of
:(he multitude from the ground they
stand upon. . —
Much is to be learned from the
Fritch constitution. Conquest and ty
ranny , tranfplanted r xhemfelves with
IWilliam the Conqueror from Norman
dy into England, ard. the country is
yet disfigured with the marks. May
then rhe example of all France contri
bute to regenerate the freedom which a
province of it destroyed!
The French constitution fays, that to
I preserve the national representation from
being corrupt, no member of the Nati
onal Assembly shall be an officer of the
government, a placeman,or a pension-
I er. What will Mr. Burke place against
this ? I will whisper his answer : Leaves
and Fijbes. Ah ! this, government of
loaves and fifties has more mifehief in it
than people have yet reflected on. The
National Assembly has made the difeo
very, and it holds out the example to
the world. Had government agreed
to quarrel on purpose to fleece their
countries by taxes, they could not have
succeeded better than they have done.
Every thing in the English govern
ment appears to me the reverse of what
it ought to be, and of what it is said to
be. The parliament, imperfectly and
on whose lands wild game shall be found,
(for it is by the produce of those lands
they are fed) shall have a right to what
he can take. That there shall be no mo
nopolies of any kind ; that all trades
(hall be free, and every man free to
follow any occupation by which he can
procure an honed livelihood, and in any
placa, town or.city throughout the na
tion. What will Mr. Burke fay to this ?
In England, game is made the proper
ty of those at whose expense it is not
fed ; and with refpe& to monopolies,
the country is cut up into monopolies.
Every chartered town is an ari ftocrati
cal monopoly in itfelf, and the qualifi
cation of electors proceeds out of those
chartered monopolies. Is this freedom ?
Is this ,whatMr.Barke means by a con-
Rituticn.?.
f^^^r?
TH E
capriciously elected as it is, is never
t\e\efs supposed to hold the national purse
in trust for the nation : b,t in the
manner in which an English ,arliament
is conftruded, it is like a man being
both morgager and morgagee ; and in
the case of misapplication o, trust, it is
the criminal fitting in judgment upon
himfelf. If those who vote the fapplies
are the fame persons who receive the
Applies when voted, and are to account
for the expenditure of those who voted
them, it is themfelve: accountable to them
fefves, and the Comedy of Errors con
cludes with the Pantomime of HusH.
Neither the ministerial party, nor the
opposition, will touch upon this cafe*
The national purse is the common hack
which each mounts upon It is like what
the country people call " Ride and tie ;
you ride a little way, then L"* They
order these things better in France.
The French constitution fays, that the
right of war and peace is in the nation.
Where else should it reside, but in those
who are to pay the expense ? .
In England, this right is said to re
side in a metaphor, (hewn at the Tower
for 6 pence or a (hilling a piece : so are
the lions ; and it would be a flep near
er to reason to fay it redded in them,
for any inanimate metaphor is no more
than a hat or a cap. We can all fee
the abfardity of worfhipping Aaron's
molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar's gol
den image, but why do men continue to
praftife in themselves, the absurdities
they despise in others ? It may with
reason be said, that in the manner the
English nation represented, it lignifies
not where this right resides,. whether in
the grown or in the parliament. War
is the common har^eft of all those. who
participate in the division and ex
penditure of public money, in all coun
tries. It is the art of conquering at home ;
the obfea of it is an increase of revenue,
and as revenue cannot be increased with
out taxes, a pretence must be made for
expenditures.
In reviewing the hiflery of the English
government, its wars and its taxes, a
stander by, not blinded by prejudice,
not warped by inrereft, would declare
that taxes were not railed to carry on
wars, bu; that wars were railed to carry
on taxes. .
Mr. Burke, as a Member of the House
of commons, is a part of the English
government ; he profeffes himfelf an
enemy to war, he abuses the French
constitution, which seeks to explode it.
He holds up the English government as
a model in all its parts, to France ; but
he mould firft know the remarks which
the French make upon it. They con
tend, in favour of their own, that the
portion of liberty enjoyed in England,
is just enough to enslave a country by,
more productively than by difpotifm ;
and that as the real objed of all despo
tism is revenue, that a government so
formed contains more than it could ei
ther by direct despotism, or in a full
slate of freedom, and is, therefore, on
the ground of interest, opposed to both.
They account also for the readinets
which always appears in such govern
ments for engaging in wars,by remark
ing on the different motives which pro
duce them. In despotic governments,
wars are the effect of pride ; but in
those governments in which they be
come the means of taxation, they ac
* It is a praaice in some parts of the
country, ^hen two travellers have but one
borfe, which like the national purse will
not carry double, that the one mounts and
rides two_or three miles a bead, and then
ties the horfeto a gate, and walks on.
When the second traveller arrives, be
takes the hors, rides on, and pafabis
companion a mile or two, and ties again ;
and so on—Ride and tie,
note.
Gazetteer.
[Numb. 19 of Volume 6—
quire thereby a more permanent promp
titude.
The French constitution, therefore,
to provide against both those evils, has
taken away the power of declaring war
from kings and ministers, and placed
the right where the expense must fall.
When the question on the right of
war and peace was agitating in the Na
tional Assembly, the people of England
appeared to be much inte fled in the
event, and highly to applaud the deci
sion. As a principle, it applies as
much to one country as to another*
William the Conqueror, as a conqueror,
held this power of war and peace in
himfelf, and his defeendants have ever
since claimed it under him as aright.
^Although Mr. Burke has affarced the
right of the parliament at the Revoluti
on to bind and control the nation and
poflerity forever, he denies, at the fame
time, that the parliament or the nation
had any right to alter what he calls the
succession of the crown, in any thing
but in parr, or by a fort of modificati.
on. By his taking this ground, he
throws the case back to the NermanCon
queJl; and by thus running a line of suc
cession springing from William the
Conqueror to the present day, he make
it necessary to inquire who and what
William the Conqueror was, and where
he came from „ and into the origin,
hiftority, and nature of what are called
prerogatives. Every thing must have
had a beginning, and the fog of time
and antiquity Ihould be penetrated to
difeover it. Let then Mr. Burke bring
forward his William of Normandy, for
it is to this origin that his argument
goes. It also unfortunately happens,
in running this line of succession, that
another line parallel" thereto, ; presents
itfelf, which is, that if the succession
runs in the line of the conquest, the na
tion runs in the line of being conquered,
and it ought to refeue itfelf from this
reproach.
But it will perhaps be said, that tho'
the power of declaring war defeends in
the heritage of the conquest, it is held
in check by the right of parliament to
withhold the supplies. It will always
happen, when a thing is originally
wrong, that amendments do not make
it right,and it often happens that they
do as much m ifehief one way as good
the other : and such is the case here,
for if the one ralhly declares war as a
matter of right,and the other perempto
rily withholds the supplies as a matter
of right, the remedy becomes as bad or
worse than the disease. The one forces
the nation to a combat, and the other
ties its hands : Bat the more probable
issue is, the contract will end in a collu
sion between the parties, and be made a
screen to both.
On this question of war, three things
are to be considered. First, the right
of declaring it : Secondly, the expense
of supporting it : Thirdly, the mode of
conducing it after it is declared. The
French constitution place the rigfawher^
the expend must fall,& this union can be
only in the nation.. The mode of con
ducing it after it iq declared, it con
signs to the executive department.
Were this the case in all countries, we
should hear but little more of wars.
Before I proceed to coofider other
parts of the French constitution, and by
way of relieving the fatigue of argument,
Iwill introduce an aneCdote which I had
from Dr. Franklin
While the DoCor resided inFrance as
minister from America,during the war,
he had numerous proposals made to him
by projectors of every country and of
every kind, who wished to go to the
land that flowcth with milk and honey,
America ; and among the rest, 'here
was one who offered himfelf to be,
King, He introduced his proposal to