Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/108

98 lick, let me refer you to the Dictionaire de la Martiniere, and to Faber, printed at the end of the sixth volume of it, and to Coxe's sketches, and to conclude with hinting at a few features of this excellent constitution. None but natives are capable of holding any office, civil or military, excepting that of governor. The three estates shall be assembled every year. The magistrates and officers of justice shall hold their employments during good behaviour; nor is the king the judge of ill behaviour. The king at his accession takes an oath to maintain all rights, liberties, franchises, and customs, written or unwritten. The king is considered as resident only at Neuchattel, and therefore when absent can only address the citizens through his governour and the council of state. No citizen can be tried out of the country or otherwise than by the judges, The prince confers nobility, and nominates to the principal offices of slate, civil and military. The Prince in his absence is represented by a governor of his own apppointing. He convokes the three estates."

It is not intended to insult the reader by pointing out the several eulogies upon monarchy and orders in this extract, nor is it hardly necessary to draw his attention to a repetition of an idea similar to that furnished by the preceding. In that, the reward of an usurping family, by placing one of it on a throne, would, it was said, have been good policy; and that the era of its expulsion, was the best possible opportunity for this experiment. In this, a government of orders, in which the king is absent, is said to be an "excellent constitution." Added to the absence of the king, the exclusion from office of all except natives, three estates assembled annually, a coronation oath, a fiction to acquire the presence of the king, trial within the country, a right in the Prince to confer nobility and appoint officers, and a locum tenens king called governor, comprise every feature of the Neuchattel constitution, urged to convince us of it excellence.