The first, calling itself the Constitutional Society, or Society
for Constitutional Information, or by some such title, is, I
believe, of seven or eight years standing. The institution of this
society appears to be of a charitable and so far of a laudable nature;
it was intended for the circulation, at the expense of the members, of
many books which few others would be at the expense of buying, and
which might lie on the hands of the booksellers, to the great loss
of an useful body of men. Whether the books, so charitably circulated,
were ever as charitably read is more than I know. Possibly several
of them have been exported to France and, like goods not in request
here, may with you have found a market. I have heard much talk of
the lights to be drawn from books that are sent from hence. What
improvements they have had in their passage (as it is said some
liquors are meliorated by crossing the sea) I cannot tell; but I never
heard a man of common judgment or the least degree of information
speak a word in praise of the greater part of the publications
circulated by that society, nor have their proceedings been accounted,
except by some of themselves, as of any serious consequence.
Your National Assembly seems to entertain much the same opinion
that I do of this poor charitable club. As a nation, you reserved
the whole stock of your eloquent acknowledgments for the Revolution
Society, when their fellows in the Constitutional were, in equity,
entitled to some share.
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