Then came the dealers
in stocks and funds, who must be eager, at any expense, to change
their ideal paper wealth for the more solid substance of land. To
these were joined men of other descriptions, from whom as little
knowledge of, or attention to, the interests of a great state was to
be expected, and as little regard to the stability of any institution;
men formed to be instruments, not controls. Such in general was the
composition of the Tiers Etat in the National Assembly, in which was
scarcely to be perceived the slightest traces of what we call the
natural landed interest of the country.
We know that the British House of Commons, without shutting its
doors to any merit in any class, is, by the sure operation of adequate
causes, filled with everything illustrious in rank, in descent, in
hereditary and in acquired opulence, in cultivated talents, in
military, civil, naval, and politic distinction that the country can
afford. But supposing, what hardly can be supposed as a case, that the
House of Commons should be composed in the same manner with the
Tiers Etat in France, would this dominion of chicane be borne with
patience or even conceived without horror? God forbid I should
insinuate anything derogatory to that profession which is another
priesthood, administering the rights of sacred justice. But whilst I
revere men in the functions which belong to them, and would do as much
as one man can do to prevent their exclusion from any, I cannot, to
flatter them, give the lie to nature.
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