reigner, matters not. Every ministry acts upon the fame idea that Mr. Burke writes, namely, that the people must be hoodwinked, and held in fuperftitious ignorance by fome bug-bear or other; and what is called the crown anfwers this purpose, and therefore it answers all the purposes to be expected from it."

*«Notwithstanding the fycophancy of hiftorians, and men like Mr. Burke, who feek to glofs over a bafe action of the court by traducing Tyler, his fame will out-live their falfehood. If the barons merited a monument to be erected in Runnymede, Tyler merits one in Smithfield,"

t "It has coft England almost seventy millions fterling to maintain a family imported from abroad, of very inferior capacity to thoufands in the nation."

"Primogeniture ought to be abolished, not only because it is unnatural and unjust, but because the country fuffers by its operation."

§ "Change of minifters amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and ftill the fame measures, vices, and extravagance are pursued. It fignifies not, who

• Rights of Man, P.
Ibid. p. 148.

is minifter; the defect lies in the system. The foundation and the fuperftructure of the government is bad."

* «The time is not very diftant, when England will laugh at itself for fending to Holland, Hanover, Zell, or Brunswick for men, at the expence of a million a year, who understood neither her laws, her language, nor her intereft, and whose capacities would scarcely have fitted them for the office of a parish conftable. If government could be trusted to fuch hands, it must be some easy and simple thing indeed, and materials fit for all the purpofes may be found in every town and village in England."

"I prefume, that though all the people of England pay taxes, not an hundredth part of them are electors, and the members of one of the houses of parliament represent nobody but themselves. There is therefore no power but the voluntary will of the people, that has a right to act in any matter respecting a general reform.

"I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike, who think at all. It is only those, who have not thought, that appear to agree,

Rights of Man, P. ii. p. 161. + Ibid. p. 172.

+ Ibid. p. 163.

It is in this cafe, as with what is called the British constitution. It has been taken for granted to be good, and encomiums have fupplied the place of proof. But when the nation comes to examine into its principles, and the abuses it admits, it will be found to have more defects, than I have pointed out in this work, and the former."

CHAP. XVI.

OF THE ATTEMPTS AND EFFECTS OF LE

VELLERS IN THESE KINGDOMS.

Religion often made the pretext for rebellion.

"TH

HAT all rebellions did ever begin with the fairest pretences for reforming of fomewhat amifs in the government, is a truth fo clear, that there needs no manifeftation thereof from example; nor were they ever obferved to have greater fuccefs, than when the colours for religion did openly appear in the van of their armed forces; most men being defirous to have it really thought (how bad and vile foever their practices are) that zeal to God's glory is no fmall part of their aim; which gilded bait hath been usually held forth to allure the vulgar by those, whose end and defigns were nothing elfe, than to get into power, and fo to poffefs themselves of the estate and fortune of their more opulent neighbours."

I do not undertake to write a full history of all the disturbances and infurrections, which

Dugdale's Preface to his Short View of the late Troubles in England.

have been raised against the government of this realm, but only to fubmit to the reflection of my countrymen fome of the convulfions in the state, which have been heretofore produced by the adoption and propagation of fuch levelling principles, as are now. fo frequently and fo boldly attempted to be maintained and circulated, in order that a premonitory review of past scenes may prevent the neceffity of corrective feverity in future.

The first person, who appears in our chronicles to have acted openly upon this level

ling principle, was Walter Tyler; who having been flain in the most emphatical act of his calling, viz. that of levelling himself with his fovereign, may be properly called the protomartyr of levellers in England.In the fifth year of king Richard II. A. D. 1381, a collector of the poll tax, which was payable by every one above the age of fixteen years, took a very unwarrantable and indecent method of afcertaining whether the daughter of this Tyler were liable to the tax. The father upon his return home, undertook

こ

Caufe of Wat

Tyler's rebel

to execute fummary juftice upon the col- lion.

lector for the indignity offered to his daugh

ter, and murthered him with his lathing

hammer. He was applauded and supported by