it requires a confiderable fhare of understanding, and the habits of experience, to determine between the one and the other. There is no doubt but a perfect fyftem of laws and government may be conceived; but to be perfect in their application and effects, they must be put in execution by beings of a fuperior nature to man. We are very fallible creatures, as the firft and beft of us know; and the fociety which we compofe, must partake of our imperfections: and therefore, before we venture to become difcontented with the government under which we live, because it is not absolutely pure and perfect, it would be a proof of our wisdom to confider, how far we ourselves, who propose to correct its errors and improve its energies, are in poffeffion of purity and perfection. While men are men, the inftitutions they form will be liable to error and perverfion.

You have, no doubt, heard much of late about the Rights of Man, and are, perhaps, acquainted with the arguments promulgated, with no common art, to perfuade Englishmen that they do not enjoy any of them. This doctrine of the Rights of Man is fupported on the principle that all men are equal by nature, and that no one claís has a real claim to privileges which are not the common poffeffion of all. That all men are, in fome refpects, equal by nature, cannot be denied; they all come into the world naked and helplefs; they all cling to the breaft for fuftenance, and, after paffing through the portion of life which the Univerfal Parent has allotted them, they retire to the common home which Na. ture has prepared for all her children.-But in the interval from the cradle to the grave, focial life forbids this equality. -The strong and the feeble are not equal-the wife and the ignorant are not equal.

The difference is in corporeal firength and intellectual faculties, which are inequalities produced by Nature herfelf, are as abfolute exceptions to this principle, as the artificial variations which neceffarily arife from a fate of fociety. We cannot be all mafters or all fervants; wealth will be the lot of fome, and labour and poverty of others. Thofe diftinctions will arife from the unconquerable nature of things, which promote the union, and form the. fecurity of focial life.

The firft and primitive relations from which thofe forms and establishments are derived by which fociety is preferved, that of parent and child, produce at once the power of command and the duty of obedience.

That a fociety could be formed where all rights and all privileges fhould be reciprocal, is not within the reach of my reafon to comprehend, at leaft of this I am fure, that,,

if

if these preachers of the levelling doctrine of equality had the power to reduce their equalizing principles to practice, they must follow up their deftruction of all the old forms of government, by profcribing from their political system not only the arts and fciences, but all trade, manufactures and commerce.

Whatever promotes an exertion of the intellectual faculties, whatever encourages a fpirit of enterprize, whatever tends to the acquifition of fortune or of fame, muft be forbidden by their confined legislation.

Thofe who live under fuch a governmenr must be all rulers and fubjects, teachers and pupils, mafters and fervants, judges and executioners, in their turn.

If these are the Rights of Man, I am ready to admit that our constitution is formed on no fuch bafis; but I may venture to affert, what indeed, it appears to me, I have already proved, that there is no one right which a reasonable man would wish to enjoy, that you do not poffess under the existing government of your country.-You have every right but the right of doing wrong. I fpeak, always, with the referve of human imperfection, but, appealing to the defeription which I have before given of your fituation, and which I call on yourselves to witnefs; let me afk you, If you are not governed by wife lawsIf you do not enjoy the property tranfmitted to you from your ancestors, or acquired by your own skill and induftry, in perfect fecurity? Have you not the privilege of a trial by jury? Is there any power that can rightfully opprefs you, and against which the laws do not provide an effectual remedy? Do you not fit beneath your own vines and your own figtrees, and enjoy yourselves and your poffeffions in peace? Do you not worship God in your own way, and according to the forms which the fpirit of your devotion hall prefcribe? It is by lofing fight of these bleffings, and by aiming at the chimerical objects which are now held out by our wild reformers, that the French nation have brought themselves to a condition which excites the wonder and the pity of Europe.

Such are the general rights which every British subject poffeffes; every man, be he a duke or a peafant, equally feels the influence of the laws and the protection of government. But fociety requires different degrees and claffes of men, and each of them poffefles the individual right of his refpective fituation in it, and by a coalition of the feveral parts, in their various fubordinations, that order and harmony is produced which forms the happiness of the whole.

The

The different members of the body are made far different functions, but it is the co-operation of all, in the refpective discharge of them, that gives energy, effect, and indeed, life to the fyftem.

It really aftonishes me, who have lived all my life among manufacturers, that any thing like a levelling and equalizing fpirit, fhould have got the leaft footing in any of our manufacturing towns; because I conceive it to be effential to their progress and exiftence, that the rich inhabitants. fhould be few, and the laborious many; and that the subordination of the different claffes to each other, is the life and foul of every species of manufactory.

By way of example, let me fuppofe, for a moment, that the working manufacturers of Manchester or Birmingham fhould be fo far inflamed by these new-fangled doctrines of the Rights of Man, as to fay to their mafters, "We have toiled for you long enough, you shall now toil for us:It is by our skill and industry that you are become rich, we will, therefore, have our rightful fhare of the wealth acquired by our means." Of fuch an operation of the Rights of Man, what would be the confequence?—

Ruin to all-to the rich, who would be defpoiled of their property; and to the poor, who would, thereby, lofe every means of future maintenance and fupport. Indeed, it appears to me, that, in places particularly devoted to trade, manufactures, and commerce, there can be no evil fo much to be dreaded as popular commotions. A foreign enemy would repay fubmiffion with clemency:-fire may be checked in its progrefs-but who fhall fay to the mad fpirit of popular tumult ;-Thus far fhalt thou go and no farther.

We live, it is true, in an age of luxury-but luxury is the certain affociate of wealth; and however, in a moral or a religious view, it may be an object of ferious concern, the trader and manufacturer, at leaft, will be difpofed to confider with complacency the fcource of fo much advantage to themselves.

Whatever, therefore, may be the pretexts ufed to make you diffatisfied with your condition, your own experience tells you every day, that the Conftitution you live under is, in its present state, a glorious Conftitution.

You are now, my countrymen, the most profperous people in the world-and it becomes you to be proud of your allotment. You muft, furely, confult your reafon as little as your piety, if you look, in this world, for bleffings. pure and unmixed. It is not in the nature of things-it is

not

not in the order of Providence, for man to poffefs them. Be thankful, therefore, for the fuperior good you enjoy— repine not at the evils which human wisdom cannot prevent? and be affured that thofe reformers, who tell you that your government is not perfect, have, in fact, any views rather than thofe of making it fo. Be not fo weak, or fo ungrateful, as to fuffer wicked and defigning men to inflame you into difcontent-and fpare not your best exertions to check the fpirit of it in others. Treat the bufy, meddling, feditious zeal of reforming affociations with the contempt they deserve ;-purfue the honest and induftrious occupations from which you, and your families, have derived fuch conftant advantage, and avail yourselves of the prefent tranquillity to improve your own and the public profperity.

In a word-recollect the well-known ftory, as it is given in the Spectator, of a man who, though he was in a state of perfect health, fuffered himself to be perfuaded by empirics. and mountebanks, that he would be better if he dofed himfelf with their noftrums:-the confequence was, as might naturally be expected, that he foon ruined his health, and brought on a decline, which carried him to the grave. As an acknowledgement of folly, and as a warning to others, he ordered the following epitaph to be infcribed on his tomb: "I was well-I endeavoured to be better-and "here I lie."

That you may all of you poffefs the wisdom to avoid a fimilar conduct, that your trade, manufactures, and commerce may continue to flourish,-that the free conftitution and fuperior happinefs of our country may remain undisturbed by foreign foes, or domeftic enemies, is the ardent wish of

Your fincere FRIEND,

A TRUE BORN ENGLISHMAN.

1

PUBLICATIONS

Printed by Order of

THE SOCIETY

FOR PRESERVING

LIBERTY AND PROPERTY

AGAINST

REPUBLICANS AND LEVELLERS.

NUMBER II.
CONTAINING

Short Hints upon Levelling---A Charge to the Grand Jury of Middlefex, by William Mainwaring, Eft. Chairman.

LONDON:

A

Printed and Sold by J. DOWNES, No. 240, Strand, near Temple-Bar; where the Bookfellers in Town and Country may be ferved with any Quantity.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

SHORT HINTS upon

LEVELLING,

EXTRACTED FROM

Dr. VINCENT's DISCOURSE, on May 13, 1792.

ADVERTISEMENT.

IT will probably occur to the Reader, upon perufal of the following pages, that when poverty is ftated as an evil of neceffity, the remedy of the evil ought to be found, not in the will of man, but in the ordinance of law. The Author is aware of the objection, and begs leave to obviate it, by remarking, that the moral part of the argument was his fole concern; it was for this reafon that he has confi✩ dered even the poor laws not as a legal injunction, but as an inftitution derived from the difpofition of the people.

There is no political cure for poverty but the encourage ment of industry. This is a point thoroughly understood by the Legislature, and provided for by the law. In this view, every drawback and bounty, every protecting duty, every regulation of the corn trade, and every affiftance given to the fisheries, ought to be regarded as political charity, tending to promote industry, and to find employment

A

for