their
places on the credit of the sobriety with which they show themselves
disposed to carry on what may seem most plausible in the mischievous
projects they pursue in common. But these men are naturally despised by
those who have heads to know, and hearts that are able to go through the
necessary demands of bold, wicked enterprises. They are naturally
classed below the latter description, and will only be used by them as
inferior instruments. They will be only the Fairfaxes of your Cromwells.
If they mean honestly, why do they not strengthen the arms of honest men
to support their ancient, legal, wise, and free government, given to
them in the spring of 1788, against the inventions of craft and the
theories of ignorance and folly? If they do not, they must continue the
scorn of both parties,--sometimes the tool, sometimes the incumbrance of
that whose views they approve, whose conduct they decry. These people
are only made to be the sport of tyrants. They never can obtain or
communicate freedom.

You ask me, too, whether we have a Committee of Research. No, Sir,--God
forbid! It is the necessary instrument of tyranny and usurpation; and
therefore I do not wonder that it has had an early establishment under
your present lords. We do not want it.

Excuse my length. I have been somewhat occupied since I was honored with
your letter; and I should not have been able to answer it at all, but
for the holidays, which have given me means of enjoying the leisure of
the country. I am called to duties which I am neither able nor willing
to evade. I must soon return to my old conflict with the corruptions and
oppressions which have prevailed in our Eastern dominions. I must turn
myself wholly from those of France.

In England we _cannot_ work so hard as Frenchmen. Frequent relaxation is
necessary to us. You are naturally more intense in your application. I
did not know this part of your national character, until I went into
France in 1773. At present, this your disposition to labor is rather
increased than lessened. In your Assembly you do not allow yourselves a
recess even on Sundays. We have two days in the week, besides the
festivals, and besides five or six months of the summer and autumn. This
continued, unremitted effort of the members of your Assembly I take to
be one among the causes of the mischief they have done. They who always
labor can have no true judgment. You never give yourselves time to cool.
You can never surve