world, but a necessary result of the operation of general principles. The popular cause-the cause of constitutional liberty-is essentially just: and the privileged classes who will finally be the only sufferers from the conflict, are also ultimately responsible for its occurrence: because it was their duty to foresee it, and to guard against it by accommodating of their own accord the forms of administration to the changes in the state of society.

The sovereigns now tell us, it is true, that they are responsible to God and not to man for the discharge of their duty. This the people know and this is one reason, among others, why they wish to change the existing political forms, and to be governed by rulers, who shall also be responsible to man. But they also know that if the sovereigns are responsible to God for the discharge of their duty, the people are also responsible to God for the performance of theirs and that it is a part of this duty to protect their persons and rights from violation, whether by brute force, or under the forms of law. The late attempts of the Northern Alliance to make out a case in their favour by introducing this doctrine of the divine right of kings, in its antiquated and exploded shape, is perhaps one of the strongest proofs they have given of their utter incompetence to the task they impose upon them

selves of regulating the interests of the civilized world, and of the absolute necessity of the political reformation they are opposing. Improvements in government, they continually urge, should be the work of the rulers themselves. In this way they are effected without convulsion or danger: while, if they are forced upon the rulers from other quarters, however useful in themselves, they are always attended with a greater or less degree of immediate positive evil. This doctrine is admirable: and the people ask for nothing better, than that their rulers would attend to it, and introduce of their own accord the necessary changes. But suppose that the sovereigns, while they publicly admit in all their declarations that the duty of introducing the necessary improvements belongs to them, forget to perform it in practice, and sanction the existence of the most intolerable abuses; must the nation leave the work undone, because the sovereigns might do it better if they would consent to undertake it? What if the sovereign himself happens to be strongly interested in the existing abuse? Is there no appeal for millions of suffering men against the arbitrary and capricious or interested decision of a single person, his minister or mistress? These are the doctrines of Eastern despotism: and it is honourable to the two most enlightened governments in Europe

that they have withdrawn their countenance from an association that avows such disgraceful principles.

In applying strong expressions to the policy adopted by these monarchs, I would not be understood as intending to impute to them or even to their adorers a proportionate degree of personal blame although it is difficult to consider them as wholly innocent, since we must suppose, that individuals, however much their opinions and feelings are of necessity under the operation of circumstances, may still with honest intentions and sufficient inquiry, especially in matters wholly practical like these, make a nearer approach to the truth. Still their views must, generally speaking, be in a great measure the result of their personal position, which, on the other hand, is itself the result of the political situation of the countries. they respectively govern. They are the rulers of empires in the lowest state of civilization. Such empires suppose of necessity an arbitrary form of government; and if the sovereigns, who are called to rule over them, are naturally imbued by their position with arbitrary principles and feelings, the circumstance is not productive of injury, while they confine themselves to the administration of their own dominions. That a despot should hold

to the doctrine of despotism is certainly natural ; and that slaves must be ruled with a rod of iron, may perhaps be admitted. The misfortune is, that these powerful despots are placed by circumstances in such a situation, that they have the opportunity of introducing their arbitrary notions, salutary enough perhaps in their effects upon their own barbarous subjects at home, into the concerns of other countries, in different states of civilization, and which ought to be governed upon other principles.

Although it is clearly the interest as well as the duty of the privileged classes in Europe, upon a large and correct view of their position, to accommodate the existing forms of government by their own voluntary act to the altered state of society, still as immediate interest generally predominates in determining human actions, such sacrifices could not have been anticipated as probable. Hence the period when the wealth and importance of the industrious classes should have risen to such a height as to give them reasonable hopes of success in an open conflict with the privileged orders was naturally to be looked to as the Age of Revolutions: and this is the period in which we live. The approach of it was not sudden and unexpected. It did not burst upon the world in thunder without

affording time for preparation to meet the shock. Those who have suffered, and are still to suffer by it, had sufficient warning; and if the understanding of the governments had been on a level with the intelligence of the age, they had ample leisure and opportunity to take all the necessary precautions for preventing the impending danger. Through the whole of the last century, there prevailed among the reflecting men in France, not a vague conjecture, but a settled conviction, which may be now found repeatedly expressed in a thousand passages of their writings, that the existing institutions could not stand. Rousseau applies the remark to the thrones of Europe in general; and every day's experience bears witness to his sagacity. But anticipations of this description attract no attention in the quarter where they might be useful, till the crisis arrives. It is thus with Great Britain at the present day. The coolest and most sagacious political philosopher, that perhaps ever appeared in Europe-a Tory in principle-pointed out more than half a century ago an approaching crisis in the financial affairs of that country. This crisis has come on more slowly than he anticipated, and the period at which he predicted that it would arrive has already passed. Still the principles on which his calculation are grounded were