men; though on the due regulation of this order
depend many emoluments, which the great men themselves, or at least many
who tread close on their heels, may enjoy, as well as some dangers which
may some time or other arise from introducing a pure state of anarchy
among them. I will represent the case, as it appears to me, very fairly
and impartially between the mob and their betters. The whole mischief
which infects this part of our economy arises from the vague and
uncertain use of a word called liberty, of which, as scarce any two men
with whom I have ever conversed seem to have one and the same idea, I
am inclined to doubt whether there be any simple universal notion
represented by this word, or whether it conveys any clearer or more
determinate idea than some of those old Punic compositions of syllables
preserved in one of the comedies of Plautus, but at present, as I
conceive, not supposed to be understood by any one.

By liberty, however, I apprehend, is commonly understood the power of
doing what we please; not absolutely, for then it would be inconsistent
with law, by whose control the liberty of the freest people, except only
the Hottentots and wild Indians, must always be restrained.

But, indeed, however largely we extend, or however moderately we
confine, the sense of the word, no politician will, I presume, contend
that it is to pervade in an equal degree, and be, with the same extent,
enjoyed by, every member of society; no such polity having been ever
found, unless among those vile people just before commemorated. Among
the Greeks and Romans the servile and free conditions were opposed to
each other; and no man who had the misfortune to be enrolled under the
former could lay any claim to liberty till the right was conveyed to him
by that master whose slave he was, either by the means of conquest, of
purchase, or of birth.

This was the state of all the free nations in the world; and this, till
very lately, was understood to be the case of our own.

I will not indeed say this is the case at present, the lowest class of
our people having shaken off all the shackles of their superiors, and
become not only as free, but even freer, than most of their superiors. I
believe it cannot be doubted, though perhaps we have no recent instance
of it, that the personal attendance of every man who hath three hundred
pounds per annum, in parliament, is indispensably his duty; and that,
if the citizens and burgesses of