conditions, and yet to maintain the throne, as the machinery necessary, in certain cases, to promulgate the will of this very constituency.  This is all that the throne does in England, and why need it do more in France?  By substituting then a more enlarged constituency, for the borough system of England, the idea of Lafayette would be completely fulfilled.  The reform in England, itself, is quite likely to demonstrate that his scheme was not as monstrous as has been affirmed.  The throne of France should be occupied as Corsica is occupied, not for the affirmative good it does the nation, so much as to prevent harm from its being occasionally vacant.

In the course of the conversation, I gave to General Lafayette the following outline of the form of government I could wish to give to France, were I a Frenchman, and had I a voice in the matter.  I give it to you on the principle already avowed, or as a traveller furnishing his notions of the things he has seen, and because it may aid in giving you a better insight into my views of the state of this country.

I would establish a monarchy, and Henry V. should be the monarch.  I would select him on account of his youth, which will admit of his being educated in the notions necessary to his duty; and on account of his birth, which would strengthen his nominal government, and, by necessary connexion, the actual government:  for I believe, that, in their hearts, and notwithstanding the professions to the contrary, nearly half of France would greatly prefer the legitimate line of their ancient kings to the actual dynasty.  This point settled, I would extend the suffrage as much as facts would justify; certainly so as to include a million or a million and a half of electors.  All idea of the representation of property should be relinquished, as the most corrupt, narrow, and vicious form of polity that has ever been devised, invariably tending to array one portion of the community against another, and endangering the very property it is supposed to protect.  A moderate property qualification might be adopted, in connexion with that of intelligence.  The present scheme in France unites, in my view of the case, precisely the two worst features of admission to the suffrage that could be devised.  The qualification of an elector is a given amount of direct contribution.  This qualification is so high as to amount to representation, and France is already so taxed as to make a diminution of the burdens one of the first objects at which a good government would aim; it follows, that as the ends of liberty are attained, its foundations would be narrowed, and the representation of property would be more and more assured.  A simple property qualification would, therefore, I think, be a better scheme than the present.