facts, such as the Revolution of 1688, and the coming of George the First, commonly called of the House of Hanover, or the House of Brunswick, or some such House. The arguments, plans, and principles, contained in the Work, the prosecutor has not ventured to attack. They are beyond his reach.

The Act which the prosecutor appears to rest most upon for the support of the prosecution, is the Act intituled, "An Act, declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown," passed in the first year of William and Mary, and more commonly known by the name of the "Bill of Rights."

I have called this Bill, "A Bill of Wrongs, and of Insult." My reasons, and also my proofs, are as follow:

The method and principle which this Bill takes for declaring rights and liberties, are in direct contradiction to rights and liberties: it is an assumed attempt to take them wholly away from posterity,-for the declaration in the said Bill is as follows:

"The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of all the people, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs, and posterity for ever;" that is, to William and Mary his wife, their heirs and successors. This is a strange way of declaring rights and liberties! But the Parliament who made this declaration in the name, and on the part of the people, had no authority from them for so doing and with respect to posterity for ever, they had no right or authority whatever in the case. It was assumption and usurpation. I have reasoned very extensively against the principle of this Bill in the first part of Rights of Man; the prosecutor has silently admitted that reasoning, and he now commences a prosecution on the authority of the Bill, after admitting the reasoning against it.

It is also to be observed, that the declaration in this Bill, abject and irrational as it is, had no other intentional operation than against the family of the Stuarts, and their abettors. The idea did not then exist, that in the space of an hundred years, posterity might discover a different and much better system of Government, and that every species of hereditary Government might fall, as Popes and Monks had fallen before. This, I say, was not then thought of, and therefore the application of the Bill, in the present case, is a new, erroneous, and illegal application, and is the same as creating a new bill, ex post facto.

It has ever been the craft of Courtiers, for the purpose of

keeping up an expensive and enormous Civil List, and a mummery of useless and antiquated places, and offices at the public expence, to be continually hanging England upon some individual or other, called King, though the man might not have capacity to be a parish constable. The folly and absurdity of this is appearing more and more every day, and still those men continue to act as if no alteration in the public opinion had taken place. They hear each. other's nonsense, and suppose the whole Nation talks the same Gibberish.

Let such men cry up the House of Orange, or the House of Brunswick, if they please. They would cry up any other house if it suited their purpose, and give as good reasons for it. But what is this house, or that house, or any house to a Nation? "For a Nation to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it." Her freedom depends wholly upon herself, and not on any house, or on any individual. I ask not in what light this cargo of foreign Houses appears to others, but I will say in what light it appears to me.--It was like the trees of the forest saying unto the bramble, Come thou and reign over us.

Thus much for both their Houses. I now come to speak of two other Houses, which are also put into the information, and those are, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Here, I suppose, the Attorney-General intends to prove me guilty of speaking either truth or falsehood; for, according to the modern interpretation of Libels, it does not signify which, and the only improvement necessary to shew the complete absurdity of such doctrine, would be, to prosecute a man for uttering a most false and wicked

truth.

I will quote the part I am going to give, from the Office Copy, with the Attorney General's inuendoes, enclosed in parentheses, as they stand in the information, and I hope that civil list officer will caution the Court not to laugh when he reads them, and also take care not to laugh himself.

The information states, that Thomas Paine, being a wicked, malicious, seditious, and evil-disposed person, hath, with force and arms, and most wicked cunning, written and published a certain false, scandalous, malicious, and seditious libel; in one part thereof, to the tenor and effect following, that is to say

"With respect to the two Houses, of which the English Parliament (meaning the Parliament of this Kingdom) is

composed, they appear to be effectually influenced into one, and, as a Legislature, to have no temper of its own. The Minister, (meaning the Minister employed by the King . of this Realm, in the administration of the Government thereof) whoever he, at any time may be, touches IT, (meaning the two Houses of Parliament of this Kingdom) as with an opium wand, and IT (meaning the two Houses of Parliament of this Kingdom) sleeps obedience."-As I am not malicious enough to disturb their repose, though it be time they should awake, I leave the two Houses, and the Attorney-General to the enjoyment of their dreams, and proceed to a new subject.

The Gentlemen to whom I shall next address myself, are those who have styled themselves " Friends of the People," holding their meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern, London.

One of the principal Members of this society is Mr. Grey, who, I believe, is also one of the most independent Members in Parliament. I collect this opinion from what Mr. Burke formerly mentioned to me, rather than from any knowledge of my own. The occasion was as follows:

I was in England at the time the bubble broke forth about Nootka Sound; and the day after the King's Message, as it is called, was sent to Parliament, I wrote a note to Mr. Burke, that upon the condition the French Revolution should not be a subject, (for he was then writing the book I have since answered) I would call on him the next day, and mention some matters I was acquainted with, respecting that affair; for it appeared to me extraordinary, that any body of men, calling themselves Representatives, should commit themselves so precipitately, or, "sleep obedience," as Parliament was then doing, and run a Nation into expence, and perhaps a war, without so much as inquiring into the case, or the subject, of both which I had some knowledge.

When I saw Mr. Burke, and mentioned the circumstances to him, he particularly spoke of Mr. Grey, as the fittest Member to bring such matters forward; for, said Mr. Burke, "I am not the proper person to do it, as I am in a treaty with Mr. Pitt about Mr. Hastings' trial." I hope the Attorney-General will allow, that Mr. Burke was then sleeping his obedience.-But to return to the Society

I cannot bring myself to believe, that the general motive of this Society is any thing more than that by which every former Parliamentary opposition has been governed, and

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by which the present is sufficiently known. their pursuit of power and place within doors, they have now (and that not in a very mannerly manner) endeavoured to possess themselves of that ground out of doors, which, had it not been made by others, would not have been made by them. They appear to me to have watched, with more cunning then candour, the progress of a certain publication, and when they saw it had excited a spirit of enquiry, and was rapidly spreading, they stepped forward to profit by the opportunity, and Mr. Fox then called it a Libel. In saying this, he libelled himself. Politicians of

this cast, such, I mean, as those who trim between parties, and lie by for events, are to be found in every country, and it never yet happened that they did not do more harm than good. They embarrass business, fritter it to nothing, perplex the people, and the event to themselves generally is, that they go just far enough to make enemies of the few, without going far enough to make friends of the many.

Whoever will read the declaration of this Society, of the 25th April, and 5th of May, will find a studied reserve upon all the points that are real abuses. They speak not once of the extravagance of Government, of the abominable list of unnecessary and sinecure places and pensions, of the enormity of the Civil List, of the excess of taxes, nor of any one matter that substantially affects the Nation; and from some conversation that has passed in that Society, it does not appear to me that it is any part of their plan to carry this class of reform into practice. No Opposition Party ever did when it gained possession.

In making these free observations, I mean not to enter into a contention with this Society; their incivility towards me, is what I should expect from place-hunting reformers. They are welcome, however, to the ground they have advanced upon, and I wish that every individual among them may act in the same upright, uninfluenced, and public spirited manner that I have done. Whatever reforms may be obtained, and by whatever means, they will be for the benefit of others, and not of me. I have no other interest in the cause than the interest of my heart. The part I have acted has been wholly that of a volunteer, unconnected with party; and when I quit, it shall be as honourably as I began.

I consider the Reform of Parliament, by an application to Parliament, as proposed by the Society, to be a worn-out, hackneyed subject, about which the Nation is tired, and

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the parties are deceiving each other. It is not a subject that is cognizable before Parliament, because no Government has a right to alter itself, either in the whole or in part. The right, and the exercise of that right, appertains to the Nation only, and the proper means is by a National Convention, elected for the purpose, by all the people. By this, the will of the Nation, whether to reform or not, or what the reform shall be, or how far it shall extend, will be known, and it cannot be known by any other means. Partial addresses, or separate associations, are not testimonies of the general will.

It is, however, certain that the opinions of men, with respect to systems and principles of Government, are changing fast in all countries. The alteration in England, within the space of little more than a year, is far greater than could then have been believed, and it is daily and hourly increasing. It moves along the country with the silence of thought. The enormous expence of Government has provoked man to think, by making them feel; and the Proclamation has served to increase jealousy and disgust. To prevent, therefore, those commotions which too often, and too suddenly arise from suffocated discontents, it is best that the general WILL should have the full and free opportunity of being publicly ascertained, and known. Wretched as the state of representation is in England, it is every day becoming worse, because the unrepresented parts of the Nation are increasing in population and property, and the represented parts are decreasing. It is, therefore, no ill-grounded estimation to say, that as not one person in seven is represented, at least fourteen millions of taxes out of the seventeen millions are paid by the unrepresented part; for although copyholds and leaseholds are assessed to the land-tax, the holders are unrepresented. Should then a general demur take place as to the obligation of paying taxes, on the ground of not being represented, it is not the Representatives of rotten Boroughs, nor Special Juries, that can decide the question. This is one of the possible cases that ought to be foreseen, in order to prevent the inconveniencies that might arise to numerous individuals, by provoking it.

I confess I have no idea of petitioning for rights. Whatever the Rights of the People are, they have a right to them, and none have a right either to withhold them, or to grant them. Government ought to be established on such principles of justice as to exclude the occasion of all such