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one for each of the shires in Wales, besides one burgess to be elected by every burgh, being a shire town, except the shire town of the county of Merioneth; and, finally, a commission was directed to be issued "to such persons as to his Highness shall seem convenient," to inquire into the laws, usages, and customs of Wales, and to certify the same to the King in council. This latter provision seems to have been made in contemplation of an event, which, by the introduction of the English laws, and an impartial administration of justice throughout the Principality, tended effectually to the extirpation of the "lewd and detestable malefacts," which were daily perpetrated, "to the high displeasure of God, inquietation of the King's well-disposed subjects, and disturbancie of the public weal." The event here alluded to was the enacting of the statute of the 34th and 25th of the same reign, a statute which Mr Barrington characterizes as containing a "most complete code of regulations for the administration of justice, framed with such precision and accuracy, that no one clause of it hath ever occasioned a doubt, or required explanation." By this edict, also, four new counties were added to Wales, and one to England *.

Many years, however, elapsed before the Welsh reaped the full advantage of this union. They were at first most obstinately averse to the adoption of the milder manners of their conquerors; but the abolition of the severe laws enacted against them in former reigns, led them to think more favourably of the English; and, finally, by associating more amicably with them, to adopt their manners, and imitate their customs. The page of the historian, and the traditions of the country, are now the only proofs of their vindictive enmity toward the English, and nearly all the traces of their fierce hostility are now wiped away from the face of

the earth. The Welsh bridge at Shrewsbury, with its well-defended towers, is no more; the appalling gibbets on the border are demolished; and all that remains of Oswestry Castle is the mound of earth on which it was erected, with a few scattered stones which once composed its masonry. But although this long-cherished animosity was at length annihilated, the Welsh continued in a state of considerable rudeness and simplicity for some time after they had been admitted to an equal participation in the laws and privileges of the English; and it was not till within these last sixty or seventy years that they began to adopt the more polished manners of their neighbours. If we may credit a reverend, though an anonymous writer, we must form what many will term a very lowly idea of Wales and her inhabitants, about the middle of the last century. The following passage is transcribed from a rare tract, printed in 1769, the author of which has evinced no little zeal and ingenuity in endeavouring to prove the illegality and evil tendency of presenting to Welsh benifices, incumbents totally ignorant of the language of their parishoners. "The greatest part of Wales," writes our author, "by its situation and its distance from the metropolis, is almost entirely excluded from the benefits of commerce. The produce of the country is the chief, and almost the only support of the natives ; what remains, after supplying the home consumption, is exported. The money they receive, in exchange for their commodities, serves them for the purposes of hospitality, not lux

ury. As money is not otherwise valuable than as it is the means of acquiring the necessaries and conveniences of life, they know no other use for it t. If accumulations of gold and silver be the only criterion of wealth-then are they poor; if plenty is-then are they rich. Happy

* These counties were those of Radnor, Brecknock, Montgomery, and Denbigh : the one added to England was that of Monmouth. Wales now consisted of twelve shires, eight having been made by Edward at the Conquest.

The following curious Epistle from Sir Roger Mostyn of Mostyn in Flintshire, to his neighbour, Pyers Pennant, Esq. of Bychton, affords a striking proof of the value of money in Wales in the seventeenth century :

in finding an asylum among those impregnable fortresses, built by the hand of Nature, which were formerly their security against the power, and, since, against the luxury, of the English; environed on all sides by these (fastnesses), they enjoy tranquillity without indolence, liberty without licentiousness, and plenty without luxury. Thus they experience a happiness unknown in bettercultivated and more-refined conntries -a happiness which opulence can never purchase!" This, exaggerated as it may appear, affords, we have no doubt, a tolerably correct view of the condition of the Welsh at the period in question. Even now, they are, for the most part, (we speak more particularly of the peasantry in the secluded districts of North Wales,) a rude and unpolished people; but their contumacious turbulence is softened down, and transformed into kind but rugged courtesy. Nor have they forgotten the martial deeds and valiant exploits of their forefathers; and the narration of their feuds and forays still serves to while

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SIR,

THE WHOLE RIGHTS OF MAN.
Letter I.

No argument is, I believe, more perplexed with fallacies, than that which professes to state the positive claim which all persons are often said to possess equally, on principles of natural or constitutional right, to vote in the election of Members of Parliament. Honest men, of all parties, ought to be anxious to see this argument probed to the bottom. For even the advocates of what is called equal representation ought to be glad

DEAR PYERS,

to see error refuted; and if their cause be, on the whole, just or reasonable, they may be sure that it will ultimately be benefited by the rejection of any false theory on which they may have been accustomed to support it. I have to request the use, therefore, of a few pages of your Journal, for the examination of this question of right.

It is, in the first place, necessary to inquire what right is, and what its extent and its limits;-right po

Mostyn,

1674

I hope you will excuse me for asking for the £.4 you owe me for the pair of oxen; but I want the money to make up £.20 to send my son to Oxford next week. I am,

DEAR PYERS,

Your's &c.

ROGER MOSTYN.

P.S.-How does your head this morning?

Mine aches confoundedly.

At this time, money was so scarce, that four pounds was the price of a pair of oxen; and the Baronet of Mostyn, (one of the richest individuals in North Wales,) was contented with sending his heir-apparent to the University with twenty pounds in his pocket! Hist. of Whitford and Holywell, p. 63.

litical is of course meant ; and that Inquiry into the true nature of right which the particular question of universal suffrage requires, will be found to involve the whole rights of man, and, therefore, to supply the criterion of every popular claim which can be in any case asserted or implied.

Now, right, (if we connect its political meaning with the true elementary signification of the term,) may be defined to consist in the possession or exercise of those political functions or powers which God commands or wills us to have. What, then, are those political functions and powers which are, by God's will, made the right of mankind? or what those functions which he appears to assign, without any reservation or difference, to any, or to all individuals? The powers and functions which he assigns as our right, he may be said, in other words, to make it our duty to claim and accordingly the assertors of every popular claim hold, and justly, that it is man's duty to assert all rights which it is God's pleasure that he should have.

Here first present themselves two sorts of right, clearly distinguished from all hypothetical rights, or from all rights which can be made out only by reasoning. These are, first, the right of possession; and, secondly, right given by law. Possession may, no doubt, be wrongful: a law may be inexpedient. No one man can have a just right to any thing inconsistent with the just right of another. Of these rights, however, namely, the right of possession, and the right which is given by law, the existence, and, under the restriction of higher principles, the validity, are quite incontestable. To say the least, they are always valid primâ facie; and that of possession is often the plainer of the two for a right possessed, is, in the case now before us, always visible in its exercise; but cases may be imagined in which a law, though certain, is not practically allowed and exemplified.

We have now to ask, whether man ever possesses any other rights than these? and two methods offer themselves of obtaining an answer. The first method is, to consult the Scripture for such lights on this subject as may be revealed; the second is, to

look for those indications which the order of Nature may be found to exhibit. Both these authorities, if both speak to the question, will undoubtedly speak with a consentient voice, for, in the same Great Author of Nature and of Revelation, there can be no contradiction: His word and works must always be in unison one with the other. I am, Sir, your humble Servant, &c.

Letter II.

In the first place, then, what says Revelation? I believe I may affirm, that it neither teaches nor implies the existence of any political right in any person, or in any class of society, with the exception of the two rights which have been enumerated, namely, the right of actual possession, and the right which is created by positive law. It seems to speak always of actual power as vested by a primâ facie right in the hands of those who possess it; it seems to sanction men in availing themselves of those privileges to which the law of the land entitles them: but the most which can be urged from Scripture, in favour of any other natural rights, is, that it contains many plain indications that God, besides the eternal happiness, wills also the temporal happiness of man. Willing this end, he must of course necessarily will the means also of producing it. If, therefore, we can prove any thing to be the means, that is, the sole, or, in any given circumstances, the best means of attaining that happiness which God has designed for us, Scripture may be said, perhaps, to afford ground for inferring that the end may, in such case, justify the means,—may, in a certain sense of the word, give a right to them,-may give a right to a specific system of polity, if that system can be adequately proved to constitute the specific means which are wanted.

Of the very material inquiry into the qualification to which this right is subject, it is not here my purpose to speak. It is enough for me to observe for the present, that this right is no other than that of expediency; and that what I have to say of the application of it to the case before us will be reserved for one of my fol

lowing letters *. The question of expediency, whether abandoned or not by the advocates of an equal representation in Parliament, it is not by any means my intention to argue, but only to bring back to the true state of the argument those reasoners who may have unwillingly wandered from it.-I am, Sir, &c.

Letter III.

We have now to ask, whether we can discern in nature, any other sort or sorts of right than those already enumerated? This can be discerned only by an examination of the human race, in all the varieties of the social order or progress, and by observing whether any political powers are either so universally committed to man, or at least so clearly intended for him, that they can be inferred, from the actual history of the species, to constitute its universal or natural rights. We, for the present, exclude, as before, the argument from expediency.

Now, here it is plain, that there are no other functions whatever in which there is so great and so irreconcilable a disparity between different men, and ages, and countries, as that which exists in the political functions which are created by different systems of polity. The passions, the common necessities of nature, the demand for luxuries by the wealthy part of mankind, seem, in some respects, to establish a community of feature between all different ages and countries: but nothing can be more various; nothing, I might almost say, more incapable of being reduced to a fixed and definite rule, than the degrees and kinds of political power, as diffused through the different ranks in society. The very last affirmation, however, which can be made, by any one who looks into the page of history, is the affirmation, that an equality of power, among the inhabitants of a single state, or of the whole world, is the intention universally of Nature or of Providence. All, surely, that history shows in this case, is not, that mankind are entitled equally to the exercise of any political power, but only

that liberty is one of the ingredients by which, in certain circumstances, the improvement and happiness of the human race are promoted, and without which, perhaps, they cannot reach their highest practicable degree of advancement. But this is only a

form of the argument from expedi

ency.

Here we come, however, to a popular argument, which professes to hinge on that very authority which is truly supposed to be paramount on the question. This argument, if I understand it accurately, is as follows:-" God gives to every man a right in his own labour, which cannot in any case be justly infringed, without the consent of the person to whom it is given. From the exercise of labour springs wealth or property, which is to be regarded, in all cases, as the representative of labour, and which, whether acquired or transmitted, is always held by precisely the same personal title which he who earned it possessed originally to his own labour. An inherited estate was the direct product of labour to the person by whom it was first accumufated. That person possessed, of course, to the product, the same title which he had to the labour producing it. It is his own: he transfers the right to whom he pleases. Hence the right accrues to the person to whom he sells that product, or to the person to whom he may choose to give it."

Now for the application of these principles to politics: "All Governments, we see, necessarily take something, either of the labour or of the wealth of those individuals by whom, in the aggregate, the whole people is composed, or of the command over labour or wealth which is possessed by those individuals. But it is unjust to dispossess any one forcibly of any thing to which he has a natural right. Each individual, therefore, has a natural right to give or to withhold, as he chooses, his consent to every measure which affects his labour or property, or rather which confers that command over them which is, of course, supposed to be lodged in the Government. He has a right to a voice, therefore, in every

Letter V.

act of the Legislature. This is free government, in its simplest form; a form, also, which is perhaps applicable, with much strictness, in very small communities, such as soine states of antiquity are said to have been, and such as, in Switzerland, some are represented still to be, states constituted by only a single town, with a very compact adjacent territory." Yet it must be observed, that, in many states which have been called free, the population has been composed principally of slaves, and, consequently, that the citizens were a privileged class. But to pursue the argument:

"In large states, to take, literally, the voice of each individual on every law or every tax which is proposed, becomes impracticable. What is practicable, and deviates least from the simple plan, is to legislate, not in mass, but by representatives. It is easy to arrange the election of representatives in such a manner that each individual shall have an equal voice in electing them: and as this is the only equitable way in which can be secured to each his natural equivalent of weight and influence, it is contended that he has a right to such a voice; and thus the right to an equal representation succeeds naturally and necessarily to the simple right of giving or withholding consent to every act of the Government." These assumptions, if I do not mistake, or assumptions equivalent to these, are at the bottom of most arguments for equal rights, or for the right of universal suffrage; arguments, I believe, more injurious to true liberty, by substituting an erroneous in the place of the true theory on which the merits of a free Government may be supported, and more likely to occasion its entire subversion than any other cause which can be assigned. That the order of nature gives to every man a right in his own labour, and in the produce of it, is, I believe, true, as a general position. Every Government which denies this right, or which denies the exercise of it, must be tyrannical. But it is another question, whether this right be uncontrollable, except by the personal consent of all those who have property or labour at their command, or by their consent, as

signified by their representatives. We will examine this question, therefore, article by article, according to the order of the propositions which have been advanced.

First, then, it is said, that God gives to every man a right to his own labour, and to its produce. Unquestionably, it is a most imperfect form of society in which labour is compulsory instead of free; nor can the order of Providence be counteracted more fatally, than by making the many, if susceptible of liberty, the vassals of the few. This tends to degrade their moral perceptions, to intercept their happiness in the present life, and to limit their means of preparing themselves for a better. On the general principle, therefore, that labour ought to be free,-that the happiness of mankind requires it should be so,-and that, so far, Providence makes free labour their right,

that, in some sense, and under certain circumstances, God gives a right to claim and assert this freedom,and that a representative system is a very happy device, and a very natural one, both for gaining it, and for securing it when gained, I entirely agree with what has been said. That universal suffrage may also be the best basis on which a representative system can rest, is a proposition which, on the ground I have here to take, I am not in the least concerned to deny. But the right, in every one of these cases, is measured by the utility. Prove the utility, and I admit the right: that is, I admit it under certain provisos. But the prior question is, of those rights or functions which may be challenged by all men, in all circumstances, as being conferred by a plainer or more direct title than that of their utility, or as being prescribed by the voice of Nature or by the will of God.

I suppose it then asserted, that, in all cases, it is the unqualified right of the labourer to do no work for the public, unless he has bound himself by some positive contract; that the man of property may, in like manner, withhold all contribution to the exigences of the State. Itmust surely be allowed, that no observation of history can lead us to infer this as the common right of mankind. There has never, probably, been a single

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