vided for them by the public: that if, for their good and faithful service, any master give them their freedom, he should be obliged to give them likewise wherewithal to subsist, or put them in a way of living without being troublesome to the commonwealth: that they should wear no habit or mark to distinguish them from hired servants: that any man should be punished who gives them the opprobrious name of slave. So, except it were that they could possess nothing, and might be sold, which really would be but an alienation of their service without their consent, they would live in a much more comfortable condition (wanting nothing necessary for life) than those who having a power to possess all things, are very often in want of every thing, to such a degree that many thousands of them come to starve for hunger."

Now all this really is much more humane than the schemes which have recently sprung out of the Malthusian philosophy, for turning the poor absolutely adrift, and telling them that they may go hang or starve, for the poor rates have reached a maximum. And there must be thousands in the united kingdom for whom such a provision, slavery though it be, would, as to the supply of all animal wants, be incalculably more comfortable than any thing they can do for themselves. Still it is slavery. Fletcher shall reply:

"But they must pardon me if I tell them, that I regard not names, but things; and that the misapplication of names has confounded every thing. We are told, there is not a slave in France; that when a slave sets his foot upon French ground, he becomes immediately free: and I say, that there is not a freeman in France, because the king takes away any part of any man's property at his pleasure; and that let him do what he will to any man there is no remedy. The Turks tell us, there are no slaves among them, except Jews, Moors, or Christians; and who is there that knows not they are all slaves to the grand seignior, and have no remedy against his will? A slave properly is one, who is absolutely subjected to the will of another man without any remedy; and not one that is only subjected under certain limitations, and upon certain accounts necessary for the good of the commonwealth, though such an one may go under that And the confounding these two conditions of men by a name common to both has in my opinion been none of the least hardships put upon those who ought to be named servants. We are all subjected to the laws; and the easier or harder conditions imposed by them upon the several ranks of men in any society, make not the distinction that is between a freeman and a slave."

name.

66 I

This distinction is good as far as it goes, but for its completion it is certainly necessary to inquire, Who makes the laws? for, unless they are the state's collective will," submission to them is but slavery after all; though it is a species. of slavery which many think very right and reasonable, who

would start with horror from that which Fletcher proposed to establish. Such are they who maintain, that " the people have nothing to do with the laws, but to obey them."

The evils of his scheme, as relating to the condition of its objects, are, that it would be continually deteriorating into a system of intolerable oppression; the masters would make and execute the laws, with no other check on the dictates of cupidity and cruelty than the fear of an insurrection, which, as they would scarcely trust arms in other hands than their own, would not be very powerful; and also, that the great spur to industry, the prospect of bettering their condition, would be wanting; for a slave would scarcely think of obtaining freedom by exertions which would make him more valuable as a slave. The fact, that the poorest man may rise to opulence, with the conspicuous examples which occasionally happen of such elevation, has made thousands industrious, comfortable, and useful members of society, who yet have never emerged from the station in which they were born.

But religion has well taught us, that "man shall not live by bread alone." The consciousness of freedom is a source of dignity and enjoyment, for which no improvement in the quality of food or clothing is a compensation. Had not Fletcher been blinded for a moment by his reveries, he would have admired, instead of reprobating, that hatred of the very name of slave, from which he anticipated the chief obstacle to the execution of his plan.

"But these things, when once resolved, must be executed with, great address, diligence, and severity; for that sort of people is so desperately wicked, such enemies of all work and labour, and, which is yet more amazing, so proud, in esteeming their own condition above that which they will be sure to call slavery, that, unless prevented by the utmost industry and diligence, upon the first publication of any orders necessary for putting in execution such a design, they will rather die with hunger in caves and dens, and murder their young children, than appear abroad to have them and themselves taken into such a kind of service."

And had they been but "vagabond" Greeks or Romans, instead of Scots, he would have applauded them " to the very echo" for such a determination. Or had his own scheme but been an English measure, how would he have thundered. Such is human nature. How differently he felt and reasoned as to the Union. Had he been convinced, that all the commercial advantages which the warmest supporters of that measure anticipated would infallibly have been realized, how little would his antipathy have abated. He well knew, that national independence and personal liberty were not mere words; but well

worth "riches fineless;" and perhaps only on this occasion, and on the latter subject, did he forget his principles in any. thing which he deliberately advocated.

Passing over various speculations, we shall just notice that contained in the "Conversation concerning a right regulation of Governments for the common good of mankind:" an end for which it is pretty clear that they are not very uniformly regulated as things were then, or are now.

The project is to take about twelve of the principal cities of the three kingdoms, and having proportionally divided the land, to constitute each city the sovereign of the adjacent country, all the little states thus formed being federally united, under the authority of delegates, or of a monarch, as might be deemed most expedient; and a similar division and union, obtaining in Europe, or all the world over, according to the great boundaries which the hand of nature or similarity of language, manners, or religion, has prescribed. It is argued, that such an arrangement would annihilate many of the greatest evils by which the world has been afflicted.

First, the interests of distant or subordinate provinces would no longer be sacrificed to the pride or selfish policy of a dominant state, as were those of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the American colonies, to England. Each of these instances is adduced by Fletcher, and he thus states the effects of the union of the two crowns, on the condition of his own country:

"I desired to inform him, that the trade of Scotland was considerable before the union of the two crowns: that as the increase of the English trade had raised the value of their lands, so the loss of our trade had sunk the rents in Scotland, impoverished the tenant, and disabled him in most places from paying his landlord any otherwise than in corn; which practice has been attended with innumerable inconveniences and great loss: that our trade was formerly in so flourishing a condition, that the shire of Fife alone had as many ships as now belong to the whole kingdom: that ten or twelve towns, which lie on the south coast of that province, had, at that time, a very considerable trade, and in our days are little better than so many heaps of ruins that our trade with France was very advantageous, by reason of the great privileges we enjoyed in that kingdom: that our commerce with Spain had been very considerable, and began during the wars between England and that nation; and that we drove a great trade in the Baltic with our fish, before the Dutch had wholly possessed themselves of that advantageous traffic. Upon the union of the crowns not only all this went to decay, but our money was spent in England, and not among ourselves; the furniture of our houses, and the best of our clothes and equipage, was bought at London : and though particular persons of the Scots' nation had many great and profitable places at court, to the high displeasure of the English, yet that was no advantage to our country, which was totally neglected,

like a farm managed by servants, and not under the eye of the master."

Notwithstanding the loss of America, all the lessons of experience, and all the increasing lights of the age on the subject of political economy, this evil is not yet worn out altoge ther, and in part it is evidently irremediable, unless by some such plan as this of Fletcher's. Even supposing the legisla ture of a large empire to make the wisest and most impartial laws, as to commerce; or, what is perhaps still better, to make no laws at all; still, if there be any good in the gradations of society, any advantage in the existence of a class of superior rank, wealth, and education, their general diffusion over the face of a country, the expenditure of their revenues in the neighbourhoods where those revenues are raised, and the influence of their acquirements and superiority on those who are condemned to toil, that they may be great and wise, is evidently more useful, as well as more just, than their collection into splendid masses to adorn a court.

Secondly.-As, under this arrangement, the capital of each state would be but of moderate size, an end would be put, or at least comparatively narrow limits would be fixed, to the vice and suffering inseparable from crowding together such immense multitudes as form the population of London, for instance; where the inducements to crime, from example, necessity, the chance of secrecy, the aid of combination, and the absence of that neighbourhood which makes every man feel that he has a character to support, are so very much greater than they could be if the same number of people were distributed into several cities or towns; and where, too, so much larger a quantity of wretchedness may exist without exciting the attention of the benevolent, or being, when noticed, so easily alleviated. By the moralist, at least, a great city has always been considered a great evil.

Thirdly. In such a form of society, there would be little war; for while the confederated states were powerful for defence, they would be feeble for attack, and to hold conquests in common would be scarcely practicable.

Thus did

"his ardent mind

Shape goodliest plans of happiness on earth,

And peace and liberty. Wild dreams! but such

As Plato lov'd; such as with holy zeal

Our Milton worshipped."

:

Even the reveries of great and original thinkers are not only worth preserving, but worth studying. However inade

quate the means, or unattainable the end may be, in the Utopian speculations of such men, there is still this advantage, that we see their notions of the causes of the numerous evils which afflict society; and though the proposed remedy may be unavailing, it is still something to become acquainted with the origin of the disease. A great service would doubtless be rendered to the human race, by ascertaining how much of what we endure results from the constitution of our nature, and is essential to our condition; and how much, being merely the fruit of unwise institutions, or erroneous principles, may be removed by persevering and well-directed efforts. The various schemes of perfect governments, and new states of society, which have been offered to the world, may be advantageously used as aids in the prosecution of this important inquiry; nor can such men as Plato, More, Harrington, Fletcher, Wallace, Hume, and Godwin, have laboured, or even sported, on the subject, without contributing, and that largely, towards supplying materials for a rational conclusion. The last mentioned author called forth the most imposing attempt which has yet been made, to prove, that while man exists, oppression, vice, misery, and war, must exist also. But even this philosophy of despair has been gradually modified, in successive editions, by the introduction of moral restraint, as a check on that tendency of population to increase, which is represented as the source of "all our woe," and the enlarged sphere assigned to its operations. Our hope for man now appears to have been only drugged with opiates, not absolutely poisoned, and she begins to revive from her slumbers. So should it be; for there is nothing more deadly, than despair of man, to all honourable, patriotic, and philanthropic exertions. The "aliquid immensum infinitumque," floating before the mind, is as needful for the inspiration of the patriot, as of the orator. Christianity has directed him who would shine in moral worth to "go on unto perfection;" and Fletcher, and men like Fletcher, have done, and will do, not all they wish indeed, but more of good than without such glorious visions they would ever achieve, by strive, ing to make an Utopia of their country.

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