weaker neighbours: our "Moderate" ingeniously
discovers that the loss of these men's lives is to be attributed to
nothing but _property_. They are necessitated to offend the laws in
order to obtain a livelihood!

On this he descants; and the extract is a political curiosity in the
French style! "_Property_ is the original cause of any _sin_ between
party and party as to civil transactions. And since the _tyrant_ is
taken off, and the government altered _in nomine_, so ought it really to
redound to the good of the people _in specie_; which, though they cannot
expect it in few years, by reason of _the multiplicity of the gentlemen
in authority_, command, &c. who drive on all designs for support of the
old government, and consequently their own interest and the _people's
slavery_, yet they doubt not but _in time_ the people will herein
discern their own blindness and folly."

In September, he advanced with more depth of thought. "_Wars_ have ever
been clothed with the most gracious pretences--viz., reformation of
religion, the laws of the land, the liberty of the subject, &c.; though
the effects thereof have proved most destructive to every nation; making
the sword, and not _the people_, the original of all authorities for
many hundred years together, taking away _each man's birthright_, and
_settling upon a few_ A CURSED PROPRIETY; the ground of all civil
offences, and the greatest cause of most sins against the heavenly
Deity. _This tyranny and oppression_ running through the veins of many
of our predecessors, and being too long maintained by the sword upon a
royal foundation, at last became so customary, as _to the vulgar it
seemed most natural_--the only reason why the _people_ of this time are
so _ignorant of their birthright_, their only freedom," &c.

"The birthright" of citoyen _Egalite_ to "_a cursed propriety settled on
a few_," was not, even among the French Jacobins, urged with more
amazing force. Had things proceeded according to our "Moderate's" plan,
"the people's slavery" had been something worse. In a short time the
nation would have had more proprietors than property. We have a curious
list of the spoliations of those members of the House of Commons, who,
after their famous _self-denying ordinances_, appropriated among
themselves sums of money, offices, and lands, for services "done or to
be done."

The most innocent of this new government of "the Majesty of the People,"
were those whose talents had b