be altogether composed of proprietors of land, and the House of Commons chiefly; and consequently neither of them can be supposed to have great property in the funds: yet the connections of the members may be so great with the proprietors, as to render them more tenacious of public faith than prudence, policy, or even justice, strictly speaking, requires. And perhaps, too, our foreign enemies may be so politic as to discover, that our safety lies in despair, and may not therefore show the danger, open and barefaced, till it be inevitable. The balance of power in Europe, our grandfathers, our fathers, and we, have all deemed too unequal to be preserved without our attention and assistance. But our children, weary of the struggle, and fettered with incumbrances, may sit down secure, and see their neighbors oppressed and conquered; till, at last, they themselves and their creditors lie both at the mercy of the conqueror. And this may properly enough be denominated the violent death of our public credit.

These seem to be the events, which are not very remote, and which reason foresees as clearly almost as she can do any thing that lies in the womb of time. And though the ancients maintained, that in order to reach the gift of prophecy, a certain divine fury or madness was requisite, one may safely affirm, that in order to deliver such prophecies as these, no more is necessary than merely to be in one's senses, free from the influence of popular madness and delusion.

ESSAY X.

OF SOME REMARKABLE CUSTOMS.

I SHALL observe three remarkable customs in three celebrated governments; and shall conclude from the whole, that all general maxims in politics ought to be established with great caution; and that irregular and extraordinary appearances are frequently discovered in the moral, as well as in the physical world. The former, perhaps, we can better account for after they happen, from springs and principles, of which every one has, within himself, or from observation, the strongest assurance and conviction: but it is often fully as impossible for human prudence, beforehand, to foresee and foretell them.

I. One would think it essential to every supreme council or assembly which debates, that entire liberty of speech should be granted to every member, and that all motions or reasonings should be received, which can any way tend to illustrate the point under deliberation. One would conclude, with still greater assurance, that after a motion was made, which was voted and approved by that assembly in which the legislative power is lodged, the member who made the motion must for ever be exempted from future trial or inquiry. But no political

maxim can, at first sight, appear more indisputable, than that he must, at least, be secured from all inferior jurisdiction; and that nothing less than the same supreme legislative assembly in their subsequent meetings, could make him accountable for those motions and harangues, to which they had before given their approbation. But these axioms, however irrefragable they may appear, have all failed in the Athenian government, from causes and principles too, which appear almost inevitable.

By the roag agarouor, or indictment of illegality, (though it has not been remarked by antiquaries or commentators,) any man was tried and punished in a common court of judicature, for any law which had passed upon his motion, in the assembly of the people, if that law appeared to the court unjust, or prejudicial to the public. Thus Demosthenes, finding that ship-money was levied irregularly, and that the poor bore the same burden as the rich in equipping the galleys, corrected this inequality by a very useful law, which proportioned the expense to the revenue and income of each individual. He moved for this law in the assembly; he proved its advantages; he convinced the people, the only legislature in Athens; the law passed, and was carried into execution: yet was he tried in a criminal court for that law, upon the complaint of the rich, who resented the alteration that he had introduced into the finances. He was indeed acquitted, upon proving anew the usefulness of his law.

Ctesiphon moved in the assembly of the people, that particular honors should be conferred on Demosthenes, as on a citizen affectionate and useful to the common

VOL. III.

His harangue for it is still extant: IIɛpì Evuuopías. † Pro Ctesiphonte.

51

wealth: the people, convinced of this truth, voted those honors: yet was Ctesiphon tried by the roagn лagavopov. It was asserted, among other topics, that Demosthenes was not a good citizen, nor affectionate to the commonwealth and the orator was called upon to defend his friend, and consequently himself; which he executed by that sublime piece of eloquence that has ever since been the admiration of mankind.

:

After the battle of Charonea, a law was passed upon the motion of Hyperides, giving liberty to slaves, and enrolling them in the troops. On account of this law, the orator was afterwards tried by the indictment above mentioned, and defended himself, among other topics, by that stroke celebrated by Plutarch and Longinus. It was not I, said he, that moved for this law: it was the necessities of war; it was the battle of Charonea. The orations of Demosthenes abound with many instances. of trials of this nature, and prove clearly, that nothing was more commonly practised.

The Athenian Democracy was such a tumultuous government as we can scarcely form a notion of in the present age of the world. The whole collective body of the people voted in every law, without any limitation of property, without any distinction of rank, without control from any magistracy or senate; † and consequently without regard to order, justice, or prudence. The Athenians soon became sensible of the mischiefs attending this constitution: but being averse to check

* Plutarchus in vita Decem Oratorum. Demosthenes gives a different account of this law. Contra Aristogiton, orat. II. He says, that its purport was, to render the rpo èñíτo, or to restore the privilege of bearing offices to those who had been declared incapable. Perhaps these were both clauses of the same law.

The senate of the Bean was only a less numerous mob, chosen by lot from among the people, and their authority was not great.

ing themselves by any rule or restriction, they resolved, at least to check their demagogues or counsellors, by the fear of future punishment and inquiry. They accordingly instituted this remarkable law, a law esteemed so essential to their form of government, that Æschines insists on it as a known truth, that were it abolished or neglected, it were impossible for the Democracy to subsist.*

The people feared not any ill consequence to liberty from the authority of the criminal courts, because these were nothing but very numerous juries, chosen by lot from among the people. And they justly considered themselves as in a state of perpetual pupilage, where they had an authority, after they came to the use of reason, not only to retract and control whatever had been determined, but to punish any guardian for measures which they had embraced by his persuasion. The same law had place in Thebes, and for the same

reason.

It appears to have been a usual practice in Athens, on the establishment of any law esteemed very useful or popular, to prohibit for ever its abrogation and repeal.

Thus the demagogue, who diverted all the public revenues to the support of shows and spectacles, made it criminal so much as to move for a repeal of this law. Thus Leptines moved for a law, not only to recall all the immunities formerly granted, but to deprive the people

* In Ctesiphontem. It is remarkable, that the first step after the dissolution of the Democracy by Critias and the thirty, was to annul the paoù zapavóμwv, as we learn from Demosthenes kara Tok. The orator in this oration, gives us the words of the law, establishing the paon aparóμor, page 297, ex edit. Aldi. And he accounts for it from the same principles we here reason upon. + Demost. Olynth. 1,

† Plut. in vita Pelop.

2.