neceffarily, acquire the most extended and focial views, which, at their return, they will communicate to their fellow citizens.: May all the provinces which are circumscribed by settled limits, fuch as Maffachufets, Connecticut, Rhode-Island, New-Jer

or this city, or this nation be, thenceforward, confidered as execrable; and, under this predicament, may they feel the avenging rage of Apollo, of Diana, of Latona, and of Minerva the Provident! May their land continue perpetually barren ! May their women, inftead of bringing forth children the images of their fathers, bear only monflers! And may even the animals, ceafing to produce the young of their species, each engender the most unnatural and frightful fœtus! May these facrilegious mifcreants feel the bitterness of calamity attendant upon all their fruitless undertakings! Should they engage in any war, may they become plunged in irrecoverable captivity! May the conquerors" raze their dwellings even to the ground, and put them, their wives, their children, their families and all their connexions to the fword! If, perchance, a single one sbould escape from this defruction, may be never offer, with acceptance, a facrifice either to Apollo, or to Latona, or to Minerva the Provident! And may thefe divinities look with borror and difdain upon their prayers and their oblations!" In fome refpects, the General Diet of Germany bears a refemblance to these ancient States' General of Greece. In the United Provinces of the LowCountries, and in the Helvetic Body, we may trace a ftill ftronger fimilitude to the perpetual confederation of the. Achæans. K.

See "Science du Gouvernement," by M. De Real.

fey,

fey, Delaware, and Maryland, feel no inconvenience or burthen from the intervention of a circumftance which is, neverthelefs, an honor to any nation! I fpeak of that fortunate abundance of citizens, who, fometimes, become a charge to the very government on which they ftill reflect the highest credit. May thefe ftates whom I have mentioned renovate that brilliant fpectacle which, during ancient times, arose in Greece, when her profperous colonies conftituted in every quarter a new country! I hope that, far from unworthily availing themselves of the multitude of their citizens, in order to acquire conquefts, they will fend them into fuch of your provinces as have (if I may venture on the expreffion) no bounds on the continent, and of which the lands are much in need of cultivators. These plantations will hold in clofer and more indiffoluble links your union and your interefts.

I feel a pleasure in calling up to your remembrance each circumftance which may contribute to the felicity of America. You entered upon the poffeffion of independence, without ceafing to continue ftrangers to ambition; and, furely, you will not imitate those European states who have fallen into depopulation, and, of course, into imbecility, by ftruggling, with force of arms, to fix the fettlement and unconditional fubmif fion of their Colonies. You know too well the rights of men and nations to fuffer barbarous errors, the wretched offsprings of fiefs and chivalry, to impofe upon your understandings, as they have deluded the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the English and the French. It is with particular fatisfaction that I observe that you now find yourselves in a predicament even more fortunate than the fituation of the ancient republics, of whom we admire the wisdom and the virtue; and that you may with lefs labor imprint on your establishments a character of stability which

D

which renders laws more dear and more refpectable.

You are not (Sir!) to be told that the ancient republics were, in a manner, shut up within the walls of the fame town, and poffeffed but an inconfiderable district of territory. All the citizens might, without difficulty, collect themselves together at public deliberations; and thefe numerous affemblies, in which was refident the legiflative power, and against which no perfon enjoyed the privilege of appealing, were exposed to all the convulfive motions of paffion, of infatuation, and of enthusiasm, by which the public order is fo frequently deranged. In the midst of these caprices, the laws did not acquire an authority fufficient to mark out and firmly establish the character of the citizens; and, frequently, was the republic indebted for its precarious fafety either to good fortune or to fome great man who arrived to adminifter fuccor to the

people,

people, and availed himself of the general confternation, in order to prevent, in fu

On the contrary, the multitude, amongst the Americans, will prove much less prefuming, much lefs imperious, and, of course, much less inconftant; because the extent of the domains of each republic and the number of its citizens do not, ad mit of the poffibility of their affembling all at one time, and in the fame place. You have adopted the modern method of di viding the countries into cantons or districts, which deliberate, apart, concerning their respective interests; themselves appointing, and investing with their delegated powers the citizens whom they judge the most worthy of representing them in the legislative affembly of the republic. From this circumftance muft you become more easily enabled to keep all arrangements in their proper or der. Never will the representatives form

fo