They went further; they disfranchised them; and, having once begun with an act of injustice, they could set no bounds to it.

Not content with cutting them off from the rights of citizens, they plundered these unfortunate wretches of all their substance; and, to crown this masterpiece of violence and tyranny, they actually sold every man of the five thousand as slaves in the public market.

Observe, my lord, that the five thousand we here speak of were cut off from a body of no more than nineteen thousand; for the entire number of citizens was no greater at that time.

Could the tyrant who wished the Roman people but one neck; could the tyrant Caligula himself have done, nay, he could scarcely wish for, a greater mischief than to have cut off, at one stroke, a fourth of his people?
Or has the cruelty of that series of sanguine tyrants, the Caesars, ever presented such a piece of flagrant and extensive wickedness?
The whole history of this celebrated republic is but one tissue of rashness, folly, ingratitude, injustice, tumult, violence, and tyranny, and, indeed, of every species of wickedness that can well be imagined.

This was a city of wise men, in which a minister could not exercise his functions; a warlike people, amongst whom a general did not dare either to gain or lose a battle; a learned nation, in which a philosopher could not venture on a free inquiry.