portion to the wretchedness and flavery of his fubjects. Thus encouraged both by paffion and intereft to trample on the publick welfare, and by his station placed above both shame and fear, he proceeds to the most horrid and shocking outrages upon mankind. Their perfons become victims of his fufpicions. The flightest displeasure is death; and a difagreeable afpect is often as great a crime as high treafon. In the court of Nero, a perfon of learning, of unquestioned merit, and of unfufpected loyalty, was put to death for no other rea fon than that he had a pedantick countenance which displeased the emperour. This very monfter of mankind appeared in the beginning of his reign to be a perfon of virtue. Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have be gun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the underftanding. And to prevent the leaft hope of amendment, a king is ever furrounded by a crowd of infamous flatterers, who find their account in keeping him from the least light of reason, till all ideas of rectitude and jus tice are utterly erafed from his mind. When Alexander had in his fury inhumanly butchered one of his best friends and braveft captains; on the return of reafon he began to conceive an hor rour fuitable to the guilt of fuch a murder. In this juncture, his council came to his affiftance.

But what did his council? They found him out a philofopher who gave him comfort. And in what manner did this philofopher comfort him for the lofs of fuch a man, and heal his confcience, flagrant with the smart of fuch a crime? You have the matter at length in Plutarch. He told him; "that let a fovereign do what he will, all his actions

are juft and lawful, because they are his." The palaces of all princes abound with fuch courtly philofophers. The confequence was such as might be expected. He grew every day a monster more abandoned to unnatural luft, to debauchery, to drunkennefs, and to murder. And yet this was originally a great man, of uncommon capacity, and a strong propensity to virtue. But unbounded power proceeds ftep by step, until it has eradicated every laudable principle. It has been remarked, that there is no prince fo bad, whofe favourites and minifters are not worse. There is hardly any prince without a favourite, by whom he is governed in as arbitrary a manner as he governs the wretches fubjected to him. Here the tyranny is doubled. There are two courts, and two interefts; both very different from the interefts of the people. The favourite knows that the regard of a tyrant is as unconftant and capricious as that of a woman; and concluding his time to be short, he makes hafte to fill up the measure of his iniquity, in rapine, in luxury, and

What

in revenge. Every avenue to the throne is fhut up. He oppreffes, and ruins the people, whilft he perfuades the prince, that those murmurs raised by his own oppreflion are the effects of difaffection to the prince's government. Then is the natural violence of defpotifm inflamed, and aggravated by hatred and revenge. To deferve well of the ftate is a crime against the prince. To be popular, and to be a traitor, are confidered as fynonymous terms. Even virtue is dangerous, as an aspiring quality, that claims an esteem by itself, and inde pendent of the countenance of the court. has been faid of the chief, is true of the inferiour officers of this fpecies of government; each in his province exercifing the fame tyranny, and grinding the people by an oppreffion, the more feverely felt, as it is near them, and exercised by base and fubordinate perfons. For the grofs of the people; they are considered as a mere herd of cattle; and really in a little time become no better; all principle of honeft pride, all fenfe of the dignity of their nature, is loft in their flavery. The day, fays Homer, which makes a man a slave, takes away half his worth; and in fact, he loses every impulfe to action, but that low and bafe one of fear. In this kind of government human nature is not only abufed, and infulted, but it is actually degraded and funk into a fpecies of brutality. The confideration of this made Mr. Locke fay, with D 4

great

great juftice, that a government of this kind was worse than anarchy; indeed it is fo abhorred, and detefted by all who live under forms that have a milder appearance, that there is fcarce a rational man in Europe, that would not prefer death to Afiatick defpotifm. Here then we have the acknowledgment of a great philofopher, that an irregular state of nature is preferable to fuch a government; we have the confent of all fenfible and generous men, who carry it yet further, and avow that death itself is preferable; and yet this fpecies of government, fo juftly condemned, and fo generally detefted, is what infinitely the greater part of mankind groan under, and have groaned under from the beginning. So that by fure and uncontefted principles, the greatest part of the governments on earth must be concluded tyrannies, impostures, violations of the natural rights of mankind, and worse than the moft diforderly anarchies. How much other forms exceed this, we fhall confider immediately.

In all parts of the world, mankind, however debafed, retains still the fenfe of feeling; the weight of tyranny, at laft, becomes infupportable; but the remedy is not fo eafy; in general, the only remedy by which they attempt to cure the tyranny, is to change the tyrant. This is, and always was the cafe for the greater part. In fome countries, however, were found men of more penetration;

who

who discovered, "that to live by one man's will, was "the caufe of all men's mifery." They therefore changed their former method, and affembling the men in their feveral focieties, the most refpectable for their understanding and fortunes, they confided to them the charge of the publick welfare. This originally formed what is called an aristocracy. They hoped, it would be impoffible that fuch a number could ever join in any design against the general good; and they promised themselves a great deal of fecurity and happiness, from the united councils of so many able and experienced perfons. But it is now found by abundant experience, that an aristocracy, and a defpotifm, differ but in name; and that a people, who are in general excluded from any fhare of the legislative, are to all intents and purposes, as much flaves, when twenty, independent of them, govern, as when but one domineers. The tyranny is even more felt, as every individual of the nobles has the haughtiness of a fultan; the people are more miferable, as they feem on the verge of liberty, from which they are for ever debarred; this fallacious idea of liberty, whilft it prefents a vain fhadow of happiness to the fubject, binds fafter the chains of his fubjection. What is left undone, by the natural avarice and pride of those who are raifed above the others, is compleated by their suspicions, and their dread of lofing an authority, which has

no