Brunswick. But besides the folly of the declaration, it happens that
the facts are all against Mr. Burke. It was by the government being
hereditary, that the liberties of the people were endangered. Charles I.
and James II. are instances of this truth; yet neither of them went so
far as to hold the Nation in contempt.

As it is sometimes of advantage to the people of one country to hear
what those of other countries have to say respecting it, it is possible
that the people of France may learn something from Mr. Burke's book, and
that the people of England may also learn something from the answers
it will occasion. When Nations fall out about freedom, a wide field of
debate is opened. The argument commences with the rights of war, without
its evils, and as knowledge is the object contended for, the party that
sustains the defeat obtains the prize.

Mr. Burke talks about what he calls an hereditary crown, as if it
were some production of Nature; or as if, like Time, it had a power to
operate, not only independently, but in spite of man; or as if it were a
thing or a subject universally consented to. Alas! it has none of
those properties, but is the reverse of them all. It is a thing in
imagination, the propriety of which is more than doubted, and the
legality of which in a few years will be denied.

But, to arrange this matter in a clearer view than what general
expression can heads under which (what is called) an hereditary crown,
or more properly speaking, an hereditary succession to the Government of
a Nation, can be considered; which are:

First, The right of a particular Family to establish itself.

Secondly, The right of a Nation to establish a particular Family.

With respect to the first of these heads, that of a Family establishing
itself with hereditary powers on its own authority, and independent of
the consent of a Nation, all men will concur in calling it despotism;
and it would be trespassing on their understanding to attempt to prove
it.

But the second head, that of a Nation establishing a particular Family
with hereditary powers, does not present itself as despotism on the
first reflection; but if men will permit it a second reflection to take
place, and carry that reflection forward but one remove out of their own
persons to that of their offspring, they will then see that hereditary
succession becomes in its consequences the same despotism to others,
which they reprobated for themselves. It ope