They pass
from hand to hand with a more rapid circulation than any other. No
excess is good, and therefore too great a proportion of landed property
may be held officially for life; but it does not seem to me of material
injury to any common wealth that there should exist some estates that
have a chance of being acquired by other means than the previous
acquisition of money.
* * * * *
This letter is grown to a great length, though it is, indeed, short with
regard to the infinite extent of the subject. Various avocations have
from time to time called my mind from the subject. I was not sorry to
give myself leisure to observe whether in the proceedings of the
National Assembly I might not find reasons to change or to qualify some
of my first sentiments. Everything has confirmed me more strongly in my
first opinions. It was my original purpose to take a view of the
principles of the National Assembly with regard to the great and
fundamental establishments, and to compare the whole of what you have
substituted in the place of what you have destroyed with the several
members of our British Constitution. But this plan is of greater extent
than at first I computed, and I find that you have little desire to take
the advantage of any examples. At present I must content myself with
some remarks upon your establishments, reserving for another time what I
proposed to say concerning the spirit of our British monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy, as practically they exist.
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