The British Mercury; Or, Historical and Critical Views of the Events of the Present Times Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 - 176 pages This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1798. Excerpt: ... CHAP. I. The Moral and Civil State of Switzerland, parti, cularlj of the Canton of Berne, before andstnet the Revolution ofFrancet VVHOEVER is acquainted with Switzerland only from books or short visits, can have taken but an imperfect survey of the civil government of that country, and particularly of the State of Berne. To justify its constitutions, it would be enough, perhaps, to fay, that they were in fact such as to merit from France the abuse with which the jurists of the Directory have endeavoured to vilify them. Incompatible with the dogmas of the Revolution, they were fortunately so with its tendencies. To end all dispute we have only to compare a continued succession of crime, -violence, injustice, torture, war, hatred, tyranny, revolt, and change, which for nine years past has composed the Annals of France, with a continued succession of customs respected by the governing and the governed, invariable laws protected by the people and their magistrates, free obedience and power supported by considence, harmony and justice, contentment and safety, 15 which which has been handed from generation to generation by the Helvetic governments. By thus reducing the question to a point of fact, it would follow that the present state of France furnishes us with the best defence of those aristocracies. On a glance of this comparison, all reasoning becomes superfluous, and a just mind immediately draws the conclusion, that the Helvetic governments were good, were it only for their dissimilitude to the French government. But if they are vindicated by the view of their effects, they are not less so by their analysis and the principles of their formation. A political institution which owes its origin neither to violence nor fraud, which has usurped none of the pri.. |