Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/112

74 them in their own country, and treat their inferiors with an air of abolute authority, they live in all the plendor of princes. This is the account of the Abbe des Fontaines in the year 1726; it is to be hoped things have ince changed for the better, but if this account was then true, who can wonder at what has happened ince.

Here again is no balance; a king, and an aembly of nobles, and nothing more: the nobles here dicover their unalterable dipoition, whenever they have the power, to limit the king's authority; and there being no mediating power of the people, collectively or repreentatively, between them, the conequence has been, what it always will be in uch a cae, confuion and calamity.

My dear Sir,

INCE the letter concerning Poland was ent you, Mr. Coxe's travels into that kingdom, &c. have fallen into my hands: and they contain o many facts material to our argument, that it is very proper to fend you the utance of this account; indeed there is carcely a book in the world, in any manner relative to the hitory of government, or to thoe branches of philoophy on which it depends, which is not much to our purpoe.

In the mot ancient times, which records or hitory elucidate, the monarchy of Poland, like all