Some gentlemen have affected to call the principles upon which this work and the former part of Rights of Man are founded, "a new-fangled doctrine." The question is not whether those principles are new or old, but whether they are right or wrong.
Suppose the former, I will show their effect by a figure easily understood.
It is now towards the middle of February.Were I to take a turn into the country, the trees would present a leafless, wintery appearance.As people are apt to pluck twigs as they walk along, Iperhaps might do the same, and by chance might observe, that a single bud on that twig had begun to swell.I should reason very unnaturally, or rather not reason at all, to suppose this was the only bud in England which had this appearance.Instead of deciding thus, I should instantly conclude, that the same appearance was beginning, or about to begin, every where; and though the vegetable sleep will continue longer on some trees and plants than on others, and though some of them may not blossom for two or three years, all will be in leaf in the summer, except those which are rotten.What pace the political summer may keep with the natural, no human foresight can determine.It is, however, not difficult to perceive that the spring is begun.- Thus wishing, as I sincerely do, freedom and happiness to all nations, I close the second part.
The Rights Of Man: Author's Notes The Author's Notes FOR PART ONE AND PART TWO1.The main and uniform maxim of the judges is, the greater the truth the greater the libel.
2.Since writing the above, two other places occur in Mr.Burke's pamphlet in which the name of the Bastille is mentioned, but in the same manner.In the one he introduces it in a sort of obscure question, and asks: "Will any ministers who now serve such a king, with but a decent appearance of respect, cordially obey the orders of those whom but the other day, in his name, they had committed to the Bastille?" In the other the taking it is mentioned as implying criminality in the French guards, who assisted in demolishing it."They have not," says he, "forgot the taking the king's castles at Paris." This is Mr.Burke, who pretends to write on constitutional freedom.
3.I am warranted in asserting this, as I had it personally from M.
de la Fayette, with whom I lived in habits of friendship for fourteen years.
4.An account of the expedition to Versailles may be seen in No.13of the Revolution de Paris containing the events from the 3rd to the 10th of October, 1789.
5.It is a practice in some parts of the country, when two travellers have but one horse, which, like the national purse, will not carry double, that the one mounts and rides two or three miles ahead, and then ties the horse to a gate and walks on.When the second traveller arrives he takes the horse, rides on, and passes his companion a mile or two, and ties again, and so on- Ride and tie.
6.The word he used was renvoye, dismissed or sent away.
7.When in any country we see extraordinary circumstances taking place, they naturally lead any man who has a talent for observation and investigation, to enquire into the causes.The manufacturers of Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, are the principal manufacturers in England.From whence did this arise? A little observation will explain the case.The principal, and the generality of the inhabitants of those places, are not of what is called in England, the church established by law: and they, or their fathers, (for it is within but a few years) withdrew from the persecution of the chartered towns, where test-laws more particularly operate, and established a sort of asylum for themselves in those places.It was the only asylum that then offered, for the rest of Europe was worse.- But the case is now changing.France and America bid all comers welcome, and initiate them into all the rights of citizenship.Policy and interest, therefore, will, but perhaps too late, dictate in England, what reason and justice could not.Those manufacturers are withdrawing, and arising in other places.There is now erecting in Passey, three miles from Paris, a large cotton manufactory, and several are already erected in America.Soon after the rejecting the Bill for repealing the test-law, one of the richest manufacturers in England said in my hearing, "England, Sir, is not a country for a dissenter to live in,- we must go to France." These are truths, and it is doing justice to both parties to tell them.It is chiefly the dissenters that have carried English manufactures to the height they are now at, and the same men have it in their power to carry them away; and though those manufactures would afterwards continue in those places, the foreign market will be lost.
There frequently appear in the London Gazette, extracts from certain acts to prevent machines and persons, as far as they can extend to persons, from going out of the country.It appears from these that the ill effects of the test-laws and church-establishment begin to be much suspected; but the remedy of force can never supply the remedy of reason.In the progress of less than a century, all the unrepresented part of England, of all denominations, which is at least an hundred times the most numerous, may begin to feel the necessity of a constitution, and then all those matters will come regularly before them.
8.When the English Minister, Mr.Pitt, mentions the French finances again in the English Parliament, it would be well that he noticed this as an example.
