ill enclose a copy with this. It is
doubtful whether they will now take up the finance or the constitution
first. The distress for money endangers every thing. No taxes are paid,
and no money can be borrowed. Mr. Necker was yesterday to give in a
memoir to the Assembly, on this subject. I think they will give him
leave to put into execution any plan he pleases, so as to debarrass
themselves of this, and take up that of the constitution. No plan is
yet reported; but the leading members (with some small difference of
opinion) have in contemplation the following. The executive power in
a hereditary King, with a negative on laws, and power to dissolve the
legislature; to be considerably restrained in the making of
treaties, and limited in his expenses. The legislative in a House of
Representatives. They propose a Senate also, chosen on the plan of our
federal Senate, by the Provincial Assemblies, but to be for life, of
a certain age, (they talk of forty years), and certain wealth (four or
five hundred guineas a year), but to have no other power as to laws
but to remonstrate against them to the representatives, who will
then determine their fate by a simple majority. This you will readily
perceive is a mere council of revision, like that of New York, which,
in order to be something, must form an alliance with the King, to avail
themselves of his veto. The alliance will be useful to both, and to the
nation. The representatives to be chosen every two or three years.
The judiciary system is less prepared than any other part of the plan;
however, they will abolish the parliaments, and establish an order of
judges and justices, general and provincial, a good deal like ours, with
trial by jury in criminal cases certainly, perhaps also in civil. The
provinces will have Assemblies for their provincial government, and the
cities a municipal body for municipal government, all founded on
the basis of popular election. These subordinate governments, though
completely dependent on the general one, will be intrusted with almost
the whole of the details which our State governments exercise. They will
have their own judiciary, final in all but great cases, the executive
business will principally pass through their hands, and a certain local
legislature will be allowed them. In short, ours has been professedly
their model, in which such changes are made as a difference of
circumstances rendered necessary, and some others neither necessary nor