There was
another error amongst them more fatal. Those of the commons who
approached to or exceeded many of the nobility in point of wealth were
not fully admitted to the rank and estimation which wealth, in reason
and good policy, ought to bestow in every country,--though I think not
equally with that of other nobility. The two kinds of aristocracy were
too punctiliously kept asunder: less so, however, than in Germany and
some other nations.
This separation, as I have already taken the liberty of suggesting to
you, I conceive to be one principal cause of the destruction of the old
nobility. The military, particularly, was too exclusively reserved for
men of family. But, after all, this was an error of opinion, which a
conflicting opinion would have rectified. A permanent Assembly, in which
the commons had their share of power, would soon abolish whatever was
too invidious and insulting in these distinctions; and even the faults
in the morals of the nobility would have been probably corrected, by the
greater varieties of occupation and pursuit to which a constitution by
orders would have given rise.
All this violent cry against the nobility I take to be a mere work of
art. To be honored and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and
inveterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages,
has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man.
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