ery individual, whether to Protect or to punish. All
are equal in its sight.]

[Footnote 22: As to the state of representation in England, it is too absurd to
be reasoned upon. Almost all the represented parts are decreasing
in population, and the unrepresented parts are increasing. A general
convention of the nation is necessary to take the whole form of
government into consideration.]

[Footnote 23: It is related that in the canton of Berne, in Switzerland, it has
been customary, from time immemorial, to keep a bear at the public
expense, and the people had been taught to believe that if they had not
a bear they should all be undone. It happened some years ago that the
bear, then in being, was taken sick, and died too suddenly to have his
place immediately supplied with another. During this interregnum the
people discovered that the corn grew, and the vintage flourished, and
the sun and moon continued to rise and set, and everything went on
the same as before, and taking courage from these circumstances, they
resolved not to keep any more bears; for, said they, "a bear is a very
voracious expensive animal, and we were obliged to pull out his claws,
lest he should hurt the citizens." The story of the bear of Berne was
related in some of the French newspapers, at the time of the flight of
Louis Xvi., and the application of it to monarchy could not be mistaken
in France; but it seems that the aristocracy of Berne applied it to
themselves, and have since prohibited the reading of French newspapers.]

[Footnote 24: It is scarcely possible to touch on any subject, that will not
suggest an allusion to some corruption in governments. The simile of
"fortifications," unfortunately involves with it a circumstance, which
is directly in point with the matter above alluded to.]

Among the numerous instances of abuse which have been acted or protected
by governments, ancient or modern, there is not a greater than that of
quartering a man and his heirs upon the public, to be maintained at its
expense.

Humanity dictates a provision for the poor; but by what right, moral or
political, does any government assume to say, that the person called
the Duke of Richmond, shall be maintained by the public? Yet, if
common report is true, not a beggar in London can purchase his wretched
pittance of coal, without paying towards the civil list of the Duke of
Richmond. Were the whole produce of this imposition but a shilling a
year, the iniqui