If Mr.Burke, or any person on his side the question, will produce an answer to the RIGHTS OF MAN that shall extend to a half, or even to a fourth part of the number of copies to which the Rights Of Man extended, I will reply to his work.

But until this be done, I shall so far take the sense of the public for my guide (and the world knows I am not a flatterer) that what they do not think worth while to read, is not worth mine to answer.

I suppose the number of copies to which the first part of the RIGHTS OF MAN extended, taking England, Scotland, and Ireland, is not less than between forty and fifty thousand.
I now come to remark on the remaining part of the quotation I have made from Mr.Burke.
"If," says he, "such writings shall be thought to deserve any other refutation than that of criminal justice." Pardoning the pun, it must be criminal justice indeed that should condemn a work as a substitute for not being able to refute it.
The greatest condemnation that could be passed upon it would be a refutation.

But in proceeding by the method Mr.Burke alludes to, the condemnation would, in the final event, pass upon the criminality of the process and not upon the work, and in this case, I had rather be the author, than be either the judge or the jury that should condemn it.
But to come at once to the point.

I have differed from some professional gentlemen on the subject of prosecutions, and I since find they are falling into my opinion, which I will here state as fully, but as concisely as I can.
I will first put a case with respect to any law, and then compare it with a government, or with what in England is, or has been, called a constitution.
It would be an act of despotism, or what in England is called arbitrary power, to make a law to prohibit investigating the principles, good or bad, on which such a law, or any other is founded.
If a law be bad it is one thing to oppose the practice of it, but it is quite a different thing to expose its errors, to reason on its defects, and to show cause why it should be repealed, or why another ought to be substituted in its place.