LETTER VI.

SOME of our fellow-citizens have ventured to predict the future fate of United America, if the system proposed to us, shall be adopted.

THOUGH every branch of the constitution and government is to be popular, and guarded by the strongest provisions, that until this day have occurred to mankind, yet the system will end, they say, in the oppression of a monarchy or aristocracy by the federal servants or some of them.

SUCH a conclusion seems not in any manner suited to the premises. -It startles, yet, not so much from its novelty, as from the respectability of the characters by which it is drawn.

WE must not be too much influenced by our esteem for those characters: but, should recollect, that when the fancy is warmed, and the judgment inclined, by the proximity or pressure of particular objects, very extraordinary declarations are not unfrequently made. Such are the frailties of our nature, that genius and integrity sometimes afford no protection against them.

PROBABLY, there never was, and never will be, such an instance of dreadful denunciation, concerning the fate of a country, as was published while the union was in agitation between England and Scotland. The English were for a joint legislature, many of the Scots for separate legislatures, and urged, that they should be in a manner swallowed up and lost in the other, as then they would not possess one eleventh part in it.

UPON that occasion, lord Belhaven, one of the most distinguished orators of the age, made in the Scottish parliament a famous speech, of which the following extract is part:

My lord chancellor,

"WHEN I consider this affair of an union between the two nations, as it is expressed in the several articles thereof, and now the subject of our deliberation at this time, I find my mind crowded with a variety of very melancholy thoughts, and I think it my duty to disburthen myself of some of them, by laying them before and exposing them to the serious consideration of this honourable house.

"I THINK, I see a free and independent kingdom delivering up that, which all the world hath been fighting for since the days of Nimrod; yea, that,

for which most of all the empires, kingdoms, states, principalities and dukedoms of Europe, are at this very time engaged in the most bloody and cruel wars that ever were; to wit, a power to manage their own affairs by themselves, without the assistance and council of any other.

"I THINK, I see a national church, founded upon a rock, secured by a claim of right, hedged and fenced about by the strictest and pointedest legal sanctions that sovereignty could contrive, voluntarily descending into a plain, upon an equal level with Jews, Papists, Socinians, Arminians, Anabaptists, and other sectaries, &c.

"I THINK, I see the noble and honorable peerage of Scotland, whose valiant predecessors led armies against their enemies, upon their own proper charges and expences, now divested of their followers and vassalages, and put upon such an equal foot with their vassals, that I think, I see a petty English EXCISEMAN receive more homage and respect, than what was paid formerly to their quondam Mackallamors.

"I THINK, I see the present peers of Scotland, whose noble ancestors conquered provinces, overrun countries, reduced and subjected towns and

ny. In their diet or congress, they enacted laws, disposed of vacant employments, declared war, made peace, entered into alliances, compelled every state of the union to obey its ordinances, and managed other affairs. Not only their laws, but their magistrates, council, judges, money, weights and measures, were the same. So uniform were they, that all seemed to be but one state. Their chief officer called Strategos, was chosen in the congress by a majority of votes. He presided in the congress, commanded the forces, and was vested with great powers, especially in time of war: but was liable to be called to an account by the congress, and punished, if convicted of misbehaviour.

THESE states had been oppressed by the kings of Macedon, and insulted by tyrants. "From their incorporation," says Polybius, " may be dated the birth of that greatness, that by a constant augment

If we shall hereafter by experience discover any vices in our constitution, let us HASTEN with prudence and a fraternal affection for each other, to correct them. We are all embarked in the same vessel, and equally concerned in repairing any defects.

Let us rouse up all our faculties, and generously strive to discover, how much happiness may be produced by political institutions.

On the nations, whose liberty has perished by the errors of their attempts, we cannot but bestow a sympathetic remembrance. That remembrance may be useful: for such events are instructors of succeeding ages.

ation, at length arrived to a marvellous height of prosperity. The fame of their wise laws and mild government reached the Greek colonies in Italy, where the Crotoniates, the Sybarites, and the Cauloniates, agreed to adopt them, and to govern their states conformably."

DID the delegates to the Amphictionic council, or to the congress of the Achæan league, destroy the liberty of their country, by establishing a monarchy or an aristocracy among themselves? Quite the contrary. While the several states continued faithful to the union, they prospered. Their affairs were shattered by dissensions, emulations, and civil wars, artfully and diligently fomented by princes who thought it their interest; and in the case of the Achæan league, partly, by the folly and wickedness of Greeks not of the league, who repined at the glories, that constantly attended the banner of free. dom, supported by courage, and conducted by prudence. Spears plunged by Grecian hands into Grecian bosoms—most horrible hostility! Some portion of art, science, or virtue, perishing with every wound-so broke their power, that at last they all sunk, the envied and the envying chained together, under the domination first of Macedon, and then of Rome: and ever since, for more than two thousand years, the illuminating genius of that glorious nation has been lost to the world, while