But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all that deserves commendation in the indefatigable labors of this Assembly?  I do not deny, that, among an infinite number of acts of violence and folly, some good may have been done.  They who destroy everything certainly will remove some grievance.  They who make everything new have a chance that they may establish something beneficial.  To give them credit for what they have done in virtue of the authority they have usurped, or to excuse them in the crimes by which that authority has been acquired, it must appear that the same things could not have been accomplished without producing such a revolution.  Most assuredly they might; because almost every one of the regulations made by them, which is not very equivocal, was either in the cession of the king, voluntarily made at the meeting of the States, or in the concurrent instructions to the orders.  Some usages have been abolished on just grounds; but they were such, that, if they had stood as they were to all eternity, they would little detract from the happiness and prosperity of any state.  The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.

Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.  In the former they have got an invaluable treasure.  They are not, I think, without some causes of apprehension and complaint; but these they do not owe to their Constitution, but to their own conduct.  I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,—­but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,—­owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have altered or superadded.  Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.  I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.  I should be led to my remedy by a great grievance.  In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors.  I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building.  A politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a moral rather than a complexional timidity, were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in their most decided conduct.  Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind.  He that had made them thus fallible rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their nature.  Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.  Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aeronauts of France.