minifterial or military? Alas, nothing but "the whistlings of a name." Call it Ariftocracy, and the gentlest government becomes tyranny: give it the name of Democracy; and there is no flavery too hard to be endured. Nay, the very men who are fuch sticklers for equality, who have even fought and bled for it, continue to this very hour to make the proudeft distinctions amongst men, even in a state of mutual captivity. The first thing that ftruck me in my vifit to Weyzel, a celebrated town, as you know, of Weftphalia, was the feeing a number of Republican French officers, (prifoners) walking on the parade attended by their fervants. Two of thefe latter, were receiving the orders of their mafters, with their heads uncovered, and their bodies bent in a very unrepublican manner. What! in a state of common calamity, are these nice diftinctions to be made, thought I? are brother prifoners to keep up this lofty difference? Are thofe who have levelled the earth, fo foon unmindful of their leading maxim? "All men are equal!" One of the fuperiors (I thought there were to be no fuperiors) grew angry, chid his domestic, and fent him from his prefence. Could the old conftitution-could defpotifm do more! I faw the obedient flave with the most servile fhrug

B 4

fhrug of his country, and of his condition, go flinking away. So much for confraternity.

My friend, a fkilful ufe of words, fubftituting one for another, as time and circumftance may require, will apparently change the nature of things: but real liberty and flavery are the fame beautiful and bitter potions, denominate them what you will, and the tyrant is not lefs an oppreffor, for altering his name to that of a friend to freedom: indeed, fome of the worst enemies that freedom ever had in all ages and countries, have affumed this facred character.

Point out to me the Defpot, that has not called himself a lover of his people, and of his country. Under this fpecious mask I have, within a few years, been an eye-witness to no lefs than two formidable infurrections in this little Republic, on the verge of which, I am now writing. I am far from being fure, that I shall not be fpectator of a * third: though one would have thought either of the two former might have written on the hearts of the people, the WISDOM OF CONTENT, in characters of blood. That which raged in 1787, is fo well and faithfully written, by an Englith author, who calls

The third has come to pass.

his

his work an history of the late Dutch Revolu tion, that I fhall not only refer, but recommend you to a perusal of it. A few of the miferable particulars, I fhall give you on the authority of perfonal knowledge. But not till I again refume the pen to affure you, amidst the storm of contending nations the wrecks of matter," and the almoft "cruth of worlds," I am, affectionately, yours.

LETTER LVII.

TO THE SAME.

WE talk much, and with much reafon, of the wild exceffes of our English mobs, my dear friend. Their fanguinary difpofition has been compared to that of our English bull-dogs, which are faid to be infatiate of blood, when they have once drawn it from the objects of their attack. Our British infurrections are, no doubt, marked like others, by fome of the prominent features of rebellion in all countries, devaftation, flames, and untimely death. But I did not know, how great an enemy man could be to man; nor had I a clear idea to what an extent human beings could go in the deftruction of one another,

although

although I am not unread in the bloody story of my own country, till I began to glean the more dreadful annals of others. The fix

years that have elapfed fince I beheld in Holland the demon of civil fury affociated with party madnefs, far from having abated the memory of their dire effects, are felt, methinks, with a ftronger horror, from having obferved fimilar outrages in other quarters of the agitated globe. Unhappy Holland! while one party were attempting to deftroy thee and themselves by fire and fword, rapine and flaughter, the other were wreaking vengeance against thy beft, faireft, and most innocent poffeffions-upon thy wives and children.

While one fide, I fay, my friend, were thus outraging all order, decency, and compaffion, the other manifefted no lefs fury. The party of the Stadtholder, and that of the patriots were alike infected with the poifon of the times. It reached the bofoms even of the gentler fex: as an inftance of which, pardon if I make your nature recoil, even as mine did on the day my flowing eyes bore testimony to it. A party of patriots had taken, and killed, in the town of Bois-le-duc, one of the Princes adherents, who had been active in the cause of the Stadtholder. His defeat was,

me,

therefore,

therefore, a kind of triumph; a groupe of people foon gathered round the body, yet ftruggling betwixt life and death. Amongst the reft, were two women who had been fetching water from the public fountains. One of thefe no fooner understood the cause of the mob's collecting, than the poured out about two thirds of the water from her pail, which she placed under the wounds of the murdered citizen, whofe blood was thus mingled with the water, when pledging the furrounding populace, the exclaimed, as the drank with more than favage fury," May rivers of this flow through the ftreets till our enemies are vanquished!" And to fuch a pitch of enthufiafin was this carried, that, as one more example, I must inform you, another patriot quarrelled with the beautiful rainbow, and fhot at it, because the orange mingled in its hues: this was nearly as mad and irreverent as the dreffing up the figure of the Virgin Mary with a red bonnet, and writing under the cross of our Saviour, the man Jefus, the ci-devant Redeemer of the world.

All comments of the moralift, my friend, are loft, and all effufions of the peaceful lover of mankind abforbed on occafions like thefe : for breaches of this fort in nations, like old and incurable wounds, though they are often fkinned