Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/107

Rh and that it was an experiment unpromising in theory, and forbidden by experience. The treatise is addressed to the people of the United States; no other people who could come to a knowledge of it, entertained an enmity in 1786, against kings and nobles; the deprecated deception and the political errour, alleged in the extract, to exist, must therefore exclusively refer to the publick opinion of the people of the United States, and to the texture of their governments. And thus are justified by the admission of Mr. Adams, the opinions asserted in this essay; that our policy is not the English; and that Mr. Adams, instead of defending it, as he proposed, has, under colour of refuting Turgot's project of a single centre of power, laboured to establish its inferiority to the English system.

"Here was the best "possible opportunity for introducing the most perfect form, by giving the executive power to one of the Medici, the power of the purse to the people, and the legislative power to both, together with the nobility.

The best possible opportunity in this extract spoken of, was a conjuncture in the history of Florence, at which the people expelled an usurper or a monarch of the Mediccan family, and attempted to establish a popular governments. That conjuncture was analogous to our expulsion of a monarch of the Guelph family. The Florentine conjuncture, says Mr. Adams, afforded the best possible opportunity for introducing the most perfect form of government, namely that of king, lords and commons. And the king was to be taken from the usurping and expelled family.

The last extract consisted of a positive declaration, that limited monarchy was the most perfect form of government, and a positive opinion as to the best conjuncture for introducing it. The following is of a similar character.

"The sovereign or rather the first magistrate of this monarchical republick, is the king of Prussia. Without descending to a particular account, of this princely repub-