carried to an astonishing height: it was even enacted that the proclamations of the king should have the force of law: a thing which even in France, never was so expressly declared: yet, no sooner did the nation recover from its long state of supineness, than the exorbitant power of the crown was reduced within its constitutional bounds.

To no other cause than the disadvantage of, their situation, are we to ascribe the low condition in which the deputies of the people in the assembly called the general estates of France, were always forced to remain.

Surrounded as they were by the particular estates of those provinces into which the kingdom had been formerly divided, they never were able to stipulate conditions with their sovereign; and, instead of making their right of granting subsidies to the crown serve to gain them in the end a share in the legislation, they ever remained confined to the unassuming privilege of "humble supplication and "remonstrance."*

* An idea of the manner in which the business of granting supplies to the crown was conducted by the states of the province of Bretagne in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, may be formed from several lively strokes to be met with in the letters of Madame de Sevigné, whose estate lay in that province, and who had often assisted at the holding of those states. The granting of

Those estates, however, as all the great lords in France were admitted into them, began at length to appear dangerous; and as the king could in the mean time do without their assistance, they were set aside.

But

supplies was not, it seems, looked upon as any serious kind of business. The whole time the states were sitting, was a continued scene of festivity and entertainment; the canvassing of the demands of the crown was chiefly carried on at the table of the nobleman who had been deputed from court to hold the states; and the different points were usually decided by a kind of acclamation. In a certain assembly of those states, the duke of Chaulnes, the lord deputy, had a present of fifty thousand crowns made to him, as well as a considerable one for his duchess, besides obtaining the demand of the court: and the lady we quote here, commenting somewhat jocularly on these grants, says Ce n'est pas que nous soyons riches: mais nous sommes honnêtes, nous avons du courage, et entre midi et une heure nous ne savons rien refuser à nos amis. "It is not "that we are rich; but we are civil, we are full of cou66 rage, and between twelve and one o'clock we are unable "to deny any thing to our friends."

The different provinces of France, it may be observed, are liable to pay several taxes besides those imposed on them by their own states. Dean Tucker, in one of his tracts, in which he has thought proper to quote this work, has added to the above instance of the French provinces that of the states of the Austrian Netherlands, which is very conclusive. And examples to the same purpose might be supplied by all those kingdoms of Europe in which provincial states are holden.

several of the particular states of the provinces are preserved to this day:* some, which for temporary reasons had been abolished, have been restored nay, so manageable have popular assemblies been found by the crown, when it has to do with many, that the kind of government we mention is that which it has been found most convenient to assign to Corsica: and Corsica has been made un pays d'états.

That the crown in England should, on a sudden, render itself independent on the commons for its supplies,—that is, should on a sudden successfully assume to itself a right to lay taxes on the subject, by its own authority, --is not certainly an event likely to take place, nor indeed is it one that should, at the present time, raise any kind of political apprehension. But it is not equally impracticable that the right of the representatives of the people might become invalidated, by being divided in the manner that has been just described.

Such a division of the right of the people might be effected in various ways. National calamities for instance, unfortunate foreign wars attended with loss of public credit, might suggest methods for raising the necessary

* The year 1784.

supplies, different from those which have hitherto been used. Dividing the kingdom into a certain number of parts, which should severally vote subsidies to the crown, or even distinct assessments to be made by the different counties into which England is now divided, might in the circumstances we suppose, be looked upon as advisable expedients and these, being once introduced, might be continued.

Another division of the right of the people, much more likely to take place than those just mentioned, might be such as might arise from acquisitions of foreign dominions, the inhabitants of which should in time claim and obtain a right to treat directly with the crown, and grant supplies to it, without the interference of the British legislature.

Should any colonies acquire the right we mention, should, for instance, the American colonies have acquired, as they claim it,-it is not to be doubted that the consequences which have resulted from a division like that we mention in most of the kingdoms of Europe, would also have taken place in the British dominions, and that the spirit of competition, above described, would in time have manifested

itself between the different colonies.

This

desire of ingratiating themselves with the crown, by means of the privilege of granting supplies to it, was even openly confessed by an agent of the American provinces, when on his being examined by the house of commons in the year 1766, he said, "the granting "aids to the crown is the only means the "Americans have of recommending themselves "to their sovereign." And the events that have of late years taken place in America, render it evident that the colonies would not have scrupled going any lengths to obtain favourable conditions at the expense of Britain and the British legislature.

That a similar spirit of competition might be raised in Ireland, is also sufficiently plain from certain late events. And should the American colonies have obtained their demands, -and at the same time should Ireland and America have increased in wealth to a certain degree, the time might have come at which the crown might have governed England with the supplies of Ireland and America-Ireland with the supplies of England and of the Ame

* Dr. Franklin.