LETTER

TO

A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY,

IN

ANSWER TO SOME OBJECTIONS TO HIS BOOK ON FRENCH AFFAIRS.

1791.


Sir,--I had the honor to receive your letter of the 17th of November
last, in which, with some exceptions, you are pleased to consider
favorably the letter I have written on the affairs of France. I shall
ever accept any mark of approbation attended with instruction with more
pleasure than general and unqualified praises. The latter can serve only
to flatter our vanity; the former, whilst it encourages us to proceed,
may help to improve us in our progress.

Some of the errors you point out to me in my printed letter are really
such. One only I find to be material. It is corrected in the edition
which I take the liberty of sending to you. As to the cavils which may
be made on some part of my remarks with regard to the _gradations_ in
your new Constitution, you observe justly that they do not affect the
substance of my objections. Whether there be a round more or less in the
ladder of representation by which your workmen ascend from their
parochial tyranny to their federal anarchy, when the whole scale is
false, appears to me of little or no importance.