How would you, my good friend, relish that kind of liberty in England, which could not be preserved without the assistance of a despotic court? Such an idea of liberty might have been announced from the throne, as one of the mysteries of Government, by James the First, or the Second; but we are amazed to find it published by a counsellor, and admirer of William the Third. It may, indeed, be said, that the smallness of the Venetian State, and its republican form of government, render it liable to be overturned by sudden tumults, or popular insurrections: this renders it the more necessary to keep a watchful eye over the conduct of individuals, and guard against every thing that may be the source of public commotion or disorder. The institution of State Inquisitors may be thought to admit of some apology in this view, like the extraordinary and irregular punishment of the Ostracism established at Athens, which had a similar foundation. In a large State, or in a less popular form of government, the same dangers from civil commotions cannot be apprehended; similar precautions for preventing them are therefore superfluous; but, notwithstanding every apology that can be made, I am at a loss to account for the existence of this terrible Tribunal for so long a time in the Venetian republic, because all ranks seem to have an interest in its destruction; and I do not see on what principle any one man, or any set of men, should wish for its preservation. It cannot be the Doge, for the State Inquisitors keep him in absolute bondage; nor would one naturally imagine that the nobles would relish this court, for the nobles are more exposed to the jealousy of the State Inquisitors than the citizens, or inferior people; and least of all ought the citizens to support a Tribunal, to which none of them can ever be admitted. As, however, the body of the nobility alone can remove this Tribunal from being part of the constitution, and yet, we find, they have always supported it; we must conclude, that a junto of that body which has sufficient influence to command a majority of their brethren, has always retained the power in their own hands, and found means of having the majority at least of the Council of Ten, chosen from their own members; so that this arbitrary court is, perhaps, always composed, by a kind of rotation, of the individuals of a junto. But if the possibility of this is denied, because of the precaution used in the form of electing by ballot, the only other way I can account for a Tribunal of such a nature being permitted to exist, is, by supposing that a majority of the Venetian nobles have so great a relish for unlimited power, that, to have a chance of enjoying it for a short period, they are willing to bear all the miseries of slavery for the rest of their lives.