nion I had conceived of him, that he would find fome opportunity of making a good use of it, for the purpose of removing those errors and prejudices, which two neighbouring nations, from the want of knowing each other, had entertained, to the injury of both.

When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded to Mr. Burke an opportunity of doing fome good, had he been difpofed to it; instead of which, no fooner did he fee the old prejudices wearing away, than he immediately began fowing the feeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England and France would ceafe to be enemies. That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations, is as fhocking as it is true; gobut when those who are concerned in the vernment of a country, make it their ftudy to fow difcord, and cultivate prejudices between Nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.

With respect to a paragraph in this Work alluding to Mr. Burke's having a pension, the report has been fome time in circulation, at leaft two months; and as a person is often the laft to hear what concerns him the most to know, I have mentioned it, that Mr. Burke may have an opportunity of contradicting the rumour, if he thinks proper.

THOMAS PAINE.

1791

RIGHTS OF MAN, &c.

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MONG the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke and irritate each other, Mr. Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution is an extraordinary instance. Neither the people of France, nor the National Affembly, were troubling themselves about the affairs of England, or the English Parliament; and why Mr. Burke fhould commence an unprovoked attack upon them, both in parliament and in public, is a conduct that cannot be pardoned on the score of manners, nor jus tified on that of policy.

There is scarcely an epithet of abuse to be found in the English language, with which Mr. Burke has not loaded the French nation and the National Affembly. Every thing which rancour, prejudice, ignorance or knowledge could fuggeft, are poured forth in the copious fury of near four hundred pages. In the strain and on the plan Mr. Burke was writing, he might have wrote on to as many thousands. When the tongue or the pen is let loofe in a phrenzy

of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.

Hitherto Mr. Burke has been mistaken and difappointed in the opinions he had formed of the affairs of France; but fuch is the ingenuity of his hope, or the malignancy of his despair, that it furnishes him with new pretences to go on. There was a time when it was impoffible to make Mr. Burke believe there would be any revolution in France. His opinion then was, that the French had neither spirit to undertake it, nor fortitude to fupport it; and now that there is one, he feeks an escape by condemning it.

Not fufficiently content with abufing the National Affembly, a great part of his work is taken up with abufing Dr. Price (one of the best-hearted men that lives), and the two focieties in England known by the name of the Revolution and the Conftitututional Societies.

Dr. Price had preached a fermon on the 4th of November, 1789, being the anniversary of what is called in England the Revolution which took place 1688. Mr. Burke, speaking of this fermon, fays, The political Divine proceeds dogmatically to affert, that, by the principles of the Revolution, the 'people of England have acquired three funda• mental rights :

1. To chufe our own governors.

. 2. To cafhier them for misconduct.

< 3. To frame a government for ourselves." Dr. Price does not fay that the right to do these things exifts in this or in that perfon, or in this or

in

in that description of perfons, but that it exists in the whole; that it is a right refident in the nation.

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Mr. Burke, on the contrary, denies that such a right exifts in the nation, either in whole or in part, or that it exists any where; and what is ftill more ftrange and marvellous, he fays, that the people ' of England utterly disclaim such a right, and that they will refift the practical affertion of it with their lives and fortunes.' That men fhould take up arms, and spend their lives and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is an entire new fpecies of discovery, and fuited to the paradoxial genius of Mr. Burke.

The method which Mr. Burke takes to prove that the people of England have no fuch rights, and that fuch rights do not now exist in the nation, either in whole or in part, or any where at all, is of the fame marvellous and monftrous kind with what he has already faid; for his arguments are, that the perfons, or the generation of perfons, in whom they did exift, are dead, and with them the right is dead alfo. To prove this, he quotes a declaration made by parliament about a hundred years ago, to William and Mary, in thefe words:-"The Lords "fpiritual and temporal, and Commons, do, in "the name of the people aforefaid—(meaning the people of England then living)-most humbly and "faithfully fubmit themselves, their heirs and pof "terities, for EVER." He alfo quotes a clause of another act of parliament made in the fame reign, the terms of which, he fays, " binds us-(meaning the people of that day)" our heirs and our pof“terity,

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terity, to them, their heirs and posterity, to the "end of time."

Mr. Burke conceives his point fufficiently eftablished by producing those clauses, which he enforces by faying that they exclude the right of the nation for ever: and not yet content with making fuch declarations, repeated over and over again, he further fays, that if the people of England poffef

fed fuch a right before the Revolution, (which he acknowledges to have been the cafe, not only in England, but throughout Europe, at an early period, yet that the English nation did, at the time of the Revolution, moft folemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their pofterity "for ever.

As Mr. Burke occafionally applies the poifon drawn from his horrid principles (if it is not a prophanation to call them by the name of principles) not only to the English nation, but to the French Revolution and the National Affembly, and charges that auguft, illuminated and illuminating body of men with the epithet of ufurpers, I hall, fans ceremonie, place another system of prin ciples in oppofition to his.

The English Parliament of 1688 did a certain thing, which, for themselves and their conftituents, they had a right to do, and which it appeared right fhould be done: but, in addition to this right, which they poffeffed by delegation, they fet up another right by affumption, that of binding and controuling pofterity to the end of time. The cafe, therefore, divides itself into two parts; the right

which