People give their fuffrages; a majority appears in favour of the propofal; it is finally proclaimed as the general will of all; and it is at bottom nothing more than the effect of the artifices of a few defigning Men who are exulting among themfelves. (a)

(a) I might confirm all these things by numberless inftances from ancient History; but, if I am allowed, in this cafe, to draw examples from my own Country, celebrare domeftica facta, I fhall relate facts which will be no lefs to the purpose. In Geneva, in the year 1707, a law was enacted, that a General Affembly of the People should be held every five years, to treat of the affairs of the Republic; but the Magiftrates, who dreaded thefe Affemblies, foon obtained from the Citizens themselves the repeal of the law; and the first resolution of the People, in the first of those periodical Affemblies (in the year 1712) was to abolish them for ever. The profound fecrecy with which the Magiftrates prepared their proposal to the Citizens on that subject, and the fudden manner in which the latter, when affembled, were acquainted with it, and made to give their votes upon it, have indeed accounted but imperfectly for this strange determination of the People; and the confternation which seized the whole Affembly, when the refult of the fuffrages was proclaimed, has confirmed many in the opinion, that fome unfair means had been used. The whole tranfaction has been kept fecret to this day; but the common opinion on this fubject, which has been adopted by Mr. Rouffeau in his Lettres de la Montagne, is this: the Magiftrates, it is said, had privately inftructed the Secretaries in whofe .ears the Citizens were to whisper their fuffrages: when a Citi

In a word, those who are acquainted with Republican Governments, and in general, who know the manner in which affairs are tranfacted in numerous Affemblies, will not fcruple to affirm, that the few who are united together, who take an active part in public

zen faid, approbation, he was understood to approve the propofal of the Magiftrates; when he faid, rejection, he was understood to reject the periodical Assemblies.

In the year 1738, the Citizens enacted at once into laws a fmall Code of forty-four Articles, by one fingle line of which they bound themfelves for ever to elect the four Syndics (the Chiefs of the Council of the twenty-five) out of the fame Council, whereas they were before free in their choice. They at that time suffered alfo the word approved to be flipped into the law mentioned in the Note (a) p. 208, which was transcribed from a former Code; the confequence of which was to render the Magiftrates the abfolute masters of the Legiflature.

The Citizens had thus been fucceffively ftripped of all their political rights, and had little more left to them than the pleasure of being called a Sovereign Affembly, when they met (which idea, it must be confeffed, preferved among them a fpirit of refiftance which it would have been dangerous for the Magiftrates to provoke too far) and the power of at leaft refusing to elect the four Syndics. Upon this privilege the Citizens have, a few years ago, made their last stand : and a fingular conjunction of circumstances having happened at the fame time, to raise and preserve among them, during three years, an uncommon spirit of union and perfeverance, they have in the iffue fucceeded in a great measure to repair the injuries which they had been made to do to themfelves for these laft two hundred years and more.

affairs, and whose station makes them confpicuous, have fuch an advantage over the many who turn their eyes towards them, and are without union among themselves, that, even with a middling degree of skill, they can at all times direct, at their pleasure, the general resolutions ;-that, as a confequence of the very nature of things, there is no propofal, however abfurd, to which a numerous affembly of Men may not be brought to affent ;-and that laws would be wifer, and more likely to procure the advantage of all, if they were to be made by drawing lots, or cafting dice, than by the fuffrages of a multitude.

CHAP.

CHAPTER VI.

Advantages that accrue to the People from appointing Reprefentatives.

How

OW then shall the People remedy the disadvantages that neceffarily attend their fituation? How fhall they refift the phalanx

of those who have engroffed to themselves all the honours, dignities, and power, in the State ?

It will be by employing for their defence the fame means with which their adverfaries carry on their attacks. It will be by using the fame weapons as they do, the fame order, the fame kind of difcipline.

They are a small number, and confequently eafily united;-a fmall number must therefore be opposed to them, that a like union may also be obtained. It is because they are a small number that they can deliberate on every

occurrence, and never come to any refolutions but fuch as are maturely weighedit is because they are few that they can have forms which continually ferve them for general standards to refort to, approved maxims to which they invariably adhere, and plans which they never lose fight of. Here therefore, I repeat it, oppose to them a small number, and you will obtain the like advantages.

Besides, those who govern, as a farther confequence of their being few, have a more confiderable share, confequently feel a deeper concern, in the fuccefs, whatever it may be, of their enterprizes. As they ufually profess a contempt for their adverfaries, and are at all times acting an offenfive part against them, they impofe on themselves an obligation of conquering. They, in fhort, who are all alive from the most powerful incentives, and aim at gaining new advantages, have to do with a multitude, who, wanting only to preserve what they already poffefs, are unavoidably liable to long intervals of inactivity and fupineness. But the People, by appointing Representatives, immediately gain to their