would otherwise begin.  Time will be gained, the public mind will continue to ripen and to be informed, a basis of support may be prepared with the people themselves, and expedients occur for gaining still something further at your next meeting, and for stopping again at the point of force.  I have ventured to send yourself and Monsieur de la Fayette a sketch of my ideas of what this act might contain, without endangering any dispute.  But it is offered merely as a canvass for you to work on, if it be fit to work on at all.  I know too little of the subject, and you know too much of it, to justify me in offering any thing but a hint.  I have done it, too, in a hurry:  insomuch, that since committing it to writing, it occurs to me that the fifth article may give alarm; that it is in a good degree included in the fourth, and is, therefore, useless.  But after all, what excuse can I make, Sir, for this presumption.  I have none but an unmeasurable love for your nation, and a painful anxiety lest despotism, after an unaccepted offer to bind its own hands, should seize you again with tenfold fury.  Permit me to add to these, very sincere assurances of the sentiments of esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

     [The annexed is the Charter accompanying the preceding letter.]

A Charter of Rights, solemnly established by the King and Nation.

1.  The States General shall assemble, uncalled, on the first day of November, annually, and shall remain together so long as they shall see cause.  They shall regulate their own elections and proceedings, and until they shall ordain otherwise, their elections shall be in the forms observed in the present year, and shall be triennial.

2.  The States General alone shall levy money on the nation, and shall appropriate it.

3.  Laws shall be made by the States General only, with the consent of the King.

4.  No person shall be restrained of his liberty, but by regular process from a court of justice, authorized by a general law. (Except that a Noble may be imprisoned by order of a court of justice, on the prayer of twelve of his nearest relations.) On complaint of an unlawful imprisonment, to any judge whatever, he shall have the prisoner immediately brought before him, and shall discharge him, if his imprisonment be unlawful.  The officer, in whose custody the prisoner is, shall obey the orders of the judge; and both judge and officer shall be responsible, civilly and criminally, for a failure of duty herein.

5.  The military shall be subordinate to the civil authority.

7.  Printers shall be liable to legal prosecution for printing and publishing false facts, injurious to the party prosecuting; but they shall be under no other restraint.

7.  All pecuniary privileges and exemptions, enjoyed by any description of persons, are abolished.