seven; and the right of presenting the | place between the two councils, it would candidates, and selecting from the can- turn out to be in an order directly opdidates alternately from one assembly posite to that which was intended. to the other, i.e. on a vacancy, the great council present three candidates to the little council, who select one from that number; and on the next vacancy, by the inversion of this process, the little council present, and the great council select; and so alternately. The members of the executive must be thirty-five years of age. Their measures are determined by a majority. The president, called the Consul, has a casting vote; his salary is fixed at 300,000 livres; that of all the other senators at 60,000 livres. The office of consul is annual. Every senator enjoys it in his turn. Every year one senator goes out, unless re-elected; which he may be once, and even twice, if he unite three fourths of the votes of each council in his favour. The executive shall name to all civil and military offices, except to those of mayors and municipalities. Political negotiations, and connections with foreign countries, fall under the direction of the executive. Declarations of war or peace, when presented by the executive to the legislative body, are to be adopted, the first by a majority of three fifths, the last by a simple majority. The parade, honours, and ceremonies of the executive, devolve upon the consul alone. The members of the senate, upon going out of office, become members of the little council, to the number of seven. Upon the vacation of an eighth senator, the oldest ex-senator in the little council resigns his seat to make room for him. All responsibility rests upon the consul alone, who has a right to stop the proceedings of a majority of the executive senate, by declaring them unconstitutional; and if the majority persevere, in spite of this declaration, the dispute is re-ject to human ambition: of course, ferred to and decided by a secret committee of the little council.

We perfectly acquiesce in the reasons M. Neckar has alleged for the preference given to an executive constituted of many individuals, rather than of one. The prize of supreme power is too tempting to admit of fair play in the game of ambition; and it is wise to lessen its value by dividing it: at least it is wise to do so under a form of government that cannot admit the better expedient of rendering the executive hereditary; an expedient (gross and absurd as it seems to be) the best calculated, perhaps, to obviate the effects of ambition upon the stability of governments, by narrowing the field on which it acts, and the object for which it contends. The Americans have determined otherwise, and adopted an elective presidency: but there are innumerable circumstances, as M. Neckar very justly observes, which render the example of America inapplicable to other governments. America is a federative republic, and the extensive jurisdiction of the individual States exonerates the President from so great a portion of the cares of domestic government, that he may almost be considered as a mere minister of foreign affairs. America presents such an immediate, and such a seducing species of provision to all its inhabitants, that it has no idle discontented populace; its population amounts only to six millions, and it is not condensed in such masses as the population of Europe. After all, an experiment of twenty years is never to be cited in politics; nothing can be built upon such a slender inference. Even if America were to remain stationary, she might find that she had presented too fascinating and irresistible an ob

that peril is increased by every augmentation of a people, who are hastenM. Neckar takes along with him the ing on, with rapid and irresistible pace, same mistake through the whole of his to the highest eminences of human constitution, by conferring the choice grandeur. Some contest for power of candidates on one body, and the there must be in every free state: but election of the member on another: so the contest for vicarial and deputed that though the alternation would take | power, as it implies the presence of a

moderator and a master, is more prudent than the struggle for that which is original and supreme.

The difficulty of reconciling the responsibility of the executive with its dignity, M. Neckar foresees; and states, but does not remedy. An irresponsible executive, the jealousy of a republic would never tolerate; and its amenability to punishment, by degrading it in the eyes of the people, diminishes its power.

All the leading features of civil liberty are copied from the constitution of this country, with hardly any variation.

rank and wealth, though they are interested by a splendid debate, will not submit to the drudgery of business, much less can they be supposed conversant in all the niceties of law questions. It is therefore necessary to add to their number a certain portion of novi homines, men of established character for talents, and upon whom the previous tenor of their lives has necessarily impressed the habits of business. The evil of this is that the title descends to their posterity, without the talents and the utility that procured it; and the dignity of the peerage is impaired Having thus finished his project of by the increase of its numbers: not a republic, M. Neckar proposes the only so, but as the peerage is the regovernment of this country as the best ward of military, as well as the earnest model of a temperate and hereditary of civil services, and as the annuity monarchy; pointing out such altera- commonly granted with it is only for tions in it as the genius of the French one or two lives, we are in some danger people, the particular circumstances in of seeing a race of nobles wholly dewhich they are placed, or the abuses pendent upon the Crown for their sup. which have crept into our policy, may port, and sacrificing their political require. From one or the other of freedom to their necessities. These these motives he re-establishes the evils are effectually, as it should seem, salique law; forms his elections after obviated by the creation of a certain* the same manner as that previously number of peers for life only; and the described in his scheme of a republic; increase of power which it seems to and excludes the clergy from the give to the Crown is very fairly counHouse of Peers. This latter assembly teracted by the exclusion of the episcoM. Neckar composes of 250 hereditary pacy, and the limitation of the hereditary peers, chosen from the best families in peerage. As the weight of business in France, and of 50 assistant peers en-the Upper House would principally joying that dignity for life only, and no-devolve upon the created peers, and as minated by the Crown. The number of they would hardly arrive at that dignity hereditary peers is limited as above; the peerage goes only in the male line; and upon each peer is perpetually entailed landed property to the amount of 30,000 livres. This partial creation of peers for life only, appears to remedy a very material defect in the English constitution. An hereditary legislative aristocracy not only adds to the dignity of the throne, and establishes that gradation of ranks which is perhaps absolutely necessary to its security, but it transacts a considerable share of the business of the nation, as well in the framing of laws as in the discharge of its juridical functions. But men of

A most sensible and valuable law, banishing gallantry and chivalry from Cabinets, and preventing the amiable antics of grave

statesmen.

without having previously acquired great civil or military reputation, the consideration they would enjoy would be little inferior to that of the other part of the aristocracy. When the noblesse of nature are fairly opposed to the noblesse created by political institutions, there is little fear that the former should suffer by the comparison.

If the clergy are suffered to sit in the Lower House, the exclusion of the episcopacy from the Upper House is of less importance: but in some part of the legislative bodies, the interests of

*The most useless and offensive tumour

in the body politic, is the titled son of a great man whose merit has placed him in the peerage. The name, face, and perhaps the pension remain. The dæmon is gone: or there is a slight flavour from the cask, but it is empty.

the church ought unquestionably to be its ancient, should be deemed so irresist represented. This consideration M.ible in the hands of its present, possesNeckar wholly passes over.*

Though this gentleman considers an hereditary monarchy as preferable in the abstract, he deems it impossible that such a government could be established in France, under her present circumstances, from the impracticability of establishing with it an hereditary aristocracy: because the property, and the force of opinion, which constituted their real power, is no more, and cannot be restored. Though we entirely agree with M. Neckar, that an hereditary aristocracy is a necessary part of temperate monarchy, and that the latter must exist upon the base of the former, or not at all-we are by no means converts to the very decided opinion he has expressed of the impossibility of restoring them both to France.

sors, we are at a loss to conceive; unless, indeed, it be supposed, that antiquity of possession diminishes the sense of right and the vigour of retention; and that men will struggle harder to keep what they have acquired only yesterday, than that which they have possessed, by themselves or their ancestors, for six centuries.

In France, the inferiority of the price of revolutionary lands, to others, is immense. Of the former species, church land is considerably dearer than the forfeited estates of emigrants. Whence the difference of price, but from the estimated difference of security? Can any fact display, more strongly, the state of public opinion with regard to the probability of a future restoration of these estates, either partial or total? We are surprised that M. Neckar and can any circumstance facilitate the should attempt to build any strong ar-execution of such a project, more than gument upon the durability of opinions the general belief that it will be exein nations that are about to undergo, cuted? M. Neckar allows, that the or that have recently undergone, great impediments to the formation of a political changes. What opinion was republic are very serious; but thinks there in favour of a republic in 1780? they would all yield to the talents and Or against it in 1794? Or, what activity of Bonaparte, if he were to opinion is there now in favour of it, in dedicate himself to the superintendence 1802? Is not the tide of opinions, at of such a government during the period this moment, in France, setting back of its infancy: of course, therefore, he with a strength equal to its flow? and is to suppose the same power dedicated is there not reason to presume, that, to the formation of an hereditary for some time to come, their ancient monarchy: or his parallel of difficulties institutions may be adored with as is unjust, and his preference irrational. much fury as they were destroyed? If Bonaparte could represent the person opinion can revive in favour of kings of a monarch, during his life, as well (and M. Neckar allows it may), why as he could represent the executive of not in favour of nobles? It is true a republic; and if he could overcome their property is in the hands of other the turbulence of electors, to whom persons; and the whole of that species freedom was new, he could appease the of proprietors will exert themselves to jealousy that his generals would enterthe utmost to prevent a restoration so tain of the returning nobles. Indeed, pernicious to their interests. The ob- without such powerful intervention, stacle is certainly of a very formidable this latter objection does not appear to nature. But why this weight of pro- us to be by any means insuperable. If perty, so weak a weapon of defence to the history of our own restoration were to be acted over again in France, and royalty and aristocracy brought back by the military successor of Bonaparte, it certainly could not be done without a very liberal distribution of favours among the great leaders of the army.

The parochial clergy are as much unrepresented in the English Parliament as they are in the parliament of Brobdignag. The bishops make just what laws they please, and the bearing they may have on the happiness of the clergy at large never for one moment comes into the serious con

sideration of Parliament.

Jealousy of the executive is one

feature of a republic; in consequence, | ance

Public acts may confer liberty; that government is clogged with a but experience only can teach a people multiplicity of safeguards and restric- to use it; and, till they have gained that tions, which render it unfit for investi- experience, they are liable to tumult, gating complicated details, and manag- to jealousy, to collision of powers, and ing extensive relations with vigour, to every evil to which men are exconsistency, and despatch. A republic, posed, who are desirous of preserving therefore, is better fitted for a little stage a great good, without knowing how to than a large one. set about it. In an old-established system of liberty, like our own, the encroachments which one department of the State makes on any other are slow, and hardly intentional; the political feelings and the constitutional knowledge, which every Englishman pos. sesses, creates a public voice, which tends to secure the tranquillity of the whole. Amid the crude sentiments and new. born precedents of sudden liberty, the Crown might destroy the Commons, or the Commons the Crown, almost before the people had formed any opinion of the nature of their contention. A nation grown free in a single day is a child born with the limbs and the vigour of a man, who would take a drawn sword for his rattle, and set the house in a blaze, that he might chuckle over the splendour.

A love of equality is another very strong principle in a republic; therefore it does not tolerate hereditary honour or wealth; and all the effect produced upon the minds of the people by this factitious power, is lost, and the government weakened: but in proportion as the government is less able to command, the people should be more willing to obey; therefore, a republic is better suited to a moral than an immoral people.

A people who have recently experienced great evils from the privileged orders and from monarchs, love republican forms so much, that the warmth of their inclination supplies, in some degree, the defect of their institutions. Immediately, therefore, upon the destruction of despotism, a republic may be preferable to a limited monarchy.

Why can factious eloquence proAnd yet, though narrowness of ter- duce such limited effects in this ritory, purity of morals, and recent country? Partly because we are acescape from despotism, appear to be customed to it, and know how to apthe circumstances which most strongly preciate it. We are acquainted with recommend a republic, M. Neckar pro-popular assemblies; and the language poses it to the most numerous and the most profligate people in Europe, who are disgusted with the very name of liberty, from the incredible evils they have suffered in pursuit of it.

Whatever be the species of free government adopted by France, she can adopt none without the greatest peril. The miserable dilemma in which men living under bad governments are placed, is, that, without a radical revolution, they may never be able to gain liberty at all, and, with it, the attainment of liberty appears to be attended with almost insuperable difficulties. To call upon a nation, on a sudden, totally destitute of such knowledge and experience, to perform all the manifold functions of a free constitution, is to entrust valuable, delicate, and abstruse mechanism, to the rudest skill and the grossest ignor

of our Parliament produces the effect it ought upon public opinion, because long experience enables us to conjecture the real motives by which men are actuated; to separate the vehemence of party spirit from the language of principle and truth; and to discover whom we can trust, and whom we cannot. The want of all this, and of much more than this, must retard, for a very long period, the practical enjoyment of liberty in France, and present very serious obstacles to her prosperity; obstacles little dreamed of by men who seem to measure the happiness and future grandeur of France by degrees of longitude and latitude, and who believe she might acquire liberty with as much facility as she could acquire Switzerland or Naples.

M. Neckar's observations on the

finances of France, and on finance in | revolutionary government. Either the despotism or the credit of France directed against this country would be highly formidable; but, both together, can never be directed at the same time. In this part of his work, M. Neckar very justly points out one of the most capital defects of Mr. Pitt's administration; who always supposed that the power of France was to cease with her credit, and measured the period of her existence by the depreciation of her assignats. Whereas, France was never niore powerful than when she was totally unable to borrow a single shilling in the whole circumference of Europe, and when her assignats were not worth the paper on which they were stamped.

general, are useful, entertaining, and not above the capacity of every reader. France, he says, at the beginning of 1781, had 438 millions of revenue; and, at present, 540 millions. The State paid, in 1781, about 215 millions in pensions, the interest of perpetual debts, and debts for life. It pays, at present, 80 millions in interests and pensions, and owes about 12 millions for anticipations on the public revenue. A considerable share of the increase of the revenue is raised upon the conquered countries; and the people are liberated from tithes, corvées, and the tax on salt. This certainly is a magnificent picture of finance. The best informed people at Paris, who would be very glad to consider it as a copy from life, dare not contend that it is At least, we sincerely ask pardon of M. Neckar, if our information as to this point be not correct; but we believe he is generally considered to have been misled by the public financial reports.

So.

In addition to the obvious causes which keep the interest of money so high in France, M. Neckar states one which we shall present to our readers : :

"There is one means for the establishment of credit (he says) equally important with the others which I have stated-a sentiment of respect for morals, sufficiently diffused to overawe the government and intimidate it from treating with bad faith

any solemn engagements contracted in the name of the state. It is this respect for morals which seems at present to have disappeared: a respect which the Revolution has destroyed, and which is unquestionably one of the firmest supports of national

faith."

Such are the principal contents of M. Neckar's very respectable work. Whether, in the course of that work, his political notions appear to be derived from a successful study of the passions of mankind, and whether his plan for the establishment of a republican government in France, for the ninth or tenth time, evinces a more sanguine, or a more sagacious mind, than the rest of the world, we would rather our readers should decide for themselves, than expose ourselves to any imputation of arrogance by deciding for them. But when we consider the pacific and impartial disposition which characterises the Last Views on Politics and Finance, the serene benevolence which it always displays, and the pure morals which it always inculcates, we cannot help entertaining a high respect for its venerable author, and feeling a fervent wish that the last views of every public man may proceed from a heart as upright, and be directed to objects as good.

AUSTRALIA. (E. REVIEW, 1803.) Account of the English Colony of New South Wales. By Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, of the Royal Marines. Vol. II. 4to. Cadell and Davies, London.

The terrorists of this country are so extremely alarmed at the power of Bonaparte, that they ascribe to him resources, which M. Neckar very justly observes to be incompatible-despotism and credit. Now, clearly, if he be so omnipotent in France as he is represented to be, there is an end of all credit; for nobody will trust him whom nobody To introduce an European population, can compel to pay; and if he estab- and, consequently, the arts and civililishes a credit, he loses all that tem-sation of Europe into such an unporary vigour which is derived from a trodden country as New Holland, is to