in the end to counteract their impulse, ought we not, as men, as patriots, to hope, that Great Britain may be able to protract her resistance, till that re-action shall be manifested? And, as mere idle wishes are unbecoming the wise and the brave, ought not the American nation to make haste to establish such a navy as will limit the conqueror's ravages to the dry land of Europe? We have more than a million tons of merchant shipping; more, much more, than queen Elizabeth of England, and Philip II. of Spain, both possessed, in the time of the famous armada. We may be slaves in soul, and possess the means of defence, without daring to use them. We do possess them, and, if our spirit bore proportion to those means, in a very few years our ships could stretch a ribbon across every harbour of France, and say with authority to the world's master, stop; here thy proud course is stayed."

This surely is not the language of a man who despaired of the means, or held at a cheap rate the spirit of his countrymen. Yet this is among the last writings of our author, and, considering the nature of its subject, the duration of the despotism and the dangerous power of France, is perhaps of all others the one, in which those dispositions had they existed, as has been pretended, would have appeared in their fullest strength. But the truth is, that he never, in fact, for one moment, abandoned the belief both of our competency to defend ourselves, and of the adequacy of our national spirit to such a result, provided our means were not suffered to lie inactive, and our spirit were not broken by a timid, and time-serving administration. It is true, that he was a believer in the practicability of the establishment of that universal empire, toward which Buonaparte, with no short strides, was advancing. And his great purpose was to make his fellow citizens contemplate such an event, and reason and act in reference to its possibility. He looked at the French conqueror, and saw that on the continent he was omnipotent. He inquired what stood between the United States and collision with this colossal chieftain. He found nothing but Britain and her navy. These removed, or commanded by Buonaparte, his empire touched our shores; he could step from his own territory upon ours. Concerning our competency to cope with such a power, he reasoned, he doubted; not because he set at a cheap rate the natural prowess of his countrymen, but because they made no preparation, neither encouraged military men, nor augmented military means.

"Far be it from us to believe that our fellow citizens in the militia are not brave. Their very bravery, we apprehend, would ensure their defeat; they would dare to attempt, what militia cannot achieve."

That he did not believe, that the United States would be able solely to resist a power, before which Europe was humbled, after the last retreat of its independence had been subjugated with Great Britain, has been imputed to him as a crime. To some it seems little less than treachery, to represent the continuance of our liberties, as dependent on the maintenance of any proportion of power among foreign nations. Yet absolute independence is no more the lot of a nation than of an individual. Our liberties, like those of every other nation, depend upon our physical strength. This is always comparative. In proportion as the powers of all other nations are absorbed by one nation, do the dangers of our independence grow more imminent.

Foresight was given to man to enable him to shape his conduct by distant consequences. It is the duty of men of talents to estimate and weigh them. Shall he alone be permitted to express the result of his inquiries, who coincides with our prejudices, flatters our pride, or panders to our passions? If a preponderating power is about to overthrow the last obstacle to ambition, is it for the interest of truth, or the people, that those wise men, who think they see in its success, the destruction of their country's safety, should be prohibited from uttering the result of their inquiries, accompanied by the considerations, on which their convictions are founded? And who will speak, or who will reason, in coincidence with the interest of the people and contrary to their prepossessions, if, on these accounts, they are to be made obnoxious to insinuations of treachery and corruption? The malign shafts, to which such men are naturally subject, where the publick sentiment does not interpose a shield in their behalf, will be found an obstacle, which very few men have the nerve to attempt to surmount. When any one, as in the present instance, at the hazard of popularity and influence, gives such eminent examples of his love of truth and sincerity, he deserves our admiration and applause, even if we do not coincide in the result of his judgments, and doubt the reasonableness of his apprehensions.

Whether Britain will be able to maintain the combat alone against Buonaparte, is a natural subject of solicitude and inquiry. The patriot, who believes that she may be brought into subjection, and that her marine will, at no very distant period, be at the command of the iron-crowned conqueror, has surely as much right to support his opinions as he, who believes in

more pleasant and less awakening doctrines. None of the aspects, which may attend the fates of the United States, in consequence of such an event, can be indifferent to a patriotick mind. If investigation satisfy any one, that with the result our peace, and perhaps our independence, is inseparably connected, and to human eye dependent, what good man shall refrain from giving it publicity? If there be errour, let it be exposed. If there be other grounds of hope, let them be fortified. But let no intelligent man be prevented, by clamour or intemperate insult, from publishing the result of his inquiries, whether they support, or whether they contravene our preconceived prejudices; lest when necessity shall make us willing to hear truth, the events of the world shall have made it too late to profit by it.

Our constitution has made it the right of every citizen, who pleases, perhaps the duty of all, who have leisure and ability, to investigate the interests of the nation and the conduct of its administration. He, who tells a people that they are invincible, that their wisdom is without danger of errour, their virtue incapable of corruption, their fates superiour to the common laws of the human constitution and the ordinary caprice of fortune, cannot fail to gather a great and attentive audience which he will retain, until a more supple and less scrupulous candidate shall offer more gross sacrifices to prejudice and vanity. He, who crosses their inclinations, contradicts their prepossessions, alarms their fears, exposes the nation's weakness, or censures its vices, seems at first to act the part of an cnemy, is easily rendered an object of suspicion, and a willing ear is lent to those, who would make him a victim of popular hatred. Yet, with such thankless exertions, the truest patriotism is often identified. As the dangers which surround our liberty grow more immediate and press upon the senses, with a more irresistible obtrusiveness, will the penetration, which was able to discern the destructive germs of licentiousness in their first shootings, and the spirit which, fearless of obloquy, dared to display them in all their deformity, become the objects of admiration and honour. The people is a sovereign, as liable as any other to be beset by parasites and sycophants; and there is no more certain sign of a swift impending ruin, than when such alone gain their ear, and influence their authority.

The views, which Mr. Ames took of the dangers which beset the world from the preponderance of French power, led him

to look with gratitude and honour upon the exertions made by the British government, in defence of the liberties of that nation, and as he had taught himself to believe of the civilized world. His sentiment fell little short of veneration, which the hazards impending over his own country associated in his mind with the spirit of patriotism. Yet on this account to render the form of that government popular in the United States, or to recommend its adoption to his fellow-citizens, in preference to their own, was ever far from his thought.

"The idea of a royal or aristocratical government for America, is very absurd. It is repugnant to the genius, and totally incompatible with the circumstances of our country. Our interests and our choice have made us republicans. We are too poor to maintain, and too proud to acknowledge, a king."

"It is, and ever has been my belief, that the federal constitution was as good, or very nearly as good, as our country could bear; that the attempt to introduce a mixed monarchy was never thought of, and would have failed, if it had been made; and could have proved only an inveterate curse to the nation, if it had been adopted cheerfully, and even unanimously, by the people."

"The present happiness of that nation rests upon old foundations, so much the more solid, because the meddlesome ignorance of professed builders has not been allowed to new lay them. We may be permitted to call it a matter of fact government. No correct politician will presume to engage, that the same form of government would succeed equally well, or even succeed at all, any where else, or even in England under any other circumstances. Who will dare to say, that their monarchy would stand, if this generation had raised it? Who, indeed, will believe, if it did stand, that the weakness produced by the novelty of its institution would not justify, and, even from a regard to self-preservation, compel an almost total departure from its essential principles ?"

Mr. Ames had too deep an insight into the nature of the human heart and too thorough an acquaintance with history, not to be sensible that the government of a nation, to give prosperity and content, must grow out of the condition and circumstances of the people, and have reference to the state of their knowledge, property, virtue, and external relations; that the duty of a patriot was not to rest content with devising and recommending forms of government, but, by instilling sound principles into the minds of his fellow-citizens, to prepare the way for the gradual adoption of such new securities for their safety and liberties, as experience and opportunity should offer. In executing this duty, he was especially zealous to impress * Page 15. † Page 383. + Page 428.

deeply on the people the necessity of placing guards on the democratick tendencies of our constitution, and to stimulate them to the preservation of those checks which it had devised, and which he perceived ambition and party-spirit gradually undermining.

Popular sovereignty is scarcely less beneficent than awful, when it resides in their courts of justice; there its office, like a sort of human providence, is to warn, enlighten, and protect; when the people are inflamed to seize and exercise it in their assemblies, it is competent only to kill and destroy. Temperate liberty is like the dew, as it falls unseen from its own heaven; constant without excess, it finds vegetation thirsting for its refreshment, and imparts to it the vigour to take more. All nature, moistened with blessings, sparkles in the morning ray. But democracy is a water spout, that bursts from the clouds, and lays the ravaged earth bare to its rocky foundations. The labours of man lie whelmed with his hopes beneath masses of ruin, that bury not only the dead, but their monuments."

Under the influence of this spirit, we find every part of his work abounding in illustrations and enforcements of those principles, on which, in his judgment, our republick could alone be made permanent.

"Experience has shewn, and it ought to be of all teaching the most profitable, that any government by mere popular impulses, any plan that excites, instead of restraining, the passions of the multitude, is a despotism: it is not, even in its beginning, much less in its progress, nor in its issue and effects, liberty."

"How little is it considered, that arbitrary power, no matter whether of prince or people, makes tyranny; and that in salutary restraint is liberty." "Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination: it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.".

|| " If Americans adopt them, and attempt to administer our orderly and rightful government by the agency of the popular passions, we shall lose our liberty at first, and in the very act of making the attempt; next, we shall see our tyrants invade every possession that could tempt their cupidity, and violate every right that could obstruct their rage."

"The great spring of action with the people in a democracy, is their fondness for one set of men, the men who flatter and deceive, and their outrageous aversion to another, most probably those who prefer their true interest to their favour."

It is the chief object of all his writings to make the sober reason of society vigilant, to inculcate the necessity of self