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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 217
this farther advantage attending it, that family connections do not eafily acquire a preju-
dicial influence as they do in republics divided into corporations or private focieties. If
you will take the trouble to compare this conftitution with that of other commonwealths,
many other advantages will irnmediately {trike you.
The council, in whofe hands the executive power is lodged, confifts of thirty-fix per-
fons, to wit, four burgomatters, four fyndics, twenty-four counfellors, and four fecreta-
ries. Only the burgomafters and counfellors have votes. It elects its own members by
lot. The power being directed only towards the proper execution of the laws in being,
is illimited, the natural confequence of which is, that both the courts of juftice and the
police have a ftrength here which they have in few republics that are fo democratic.
Nor is government taken in hand here as in other countries, by perfons who have ito
proper vocation to it. Three of the burgomafters, the counfellors, and all the fyndics
and fecretaries, muft be graduated literati, who have given proofs of their learning. One
burgomatter and ten counfellors muit, confiftently with the nature of the common-
wealth, be merchants. The pay of the counfellors is fufficient to reftrain the fpirit of
innovation. Honour, virtue and ability, are the moft likely foundations to fucceed in
being elected. When a counfellor abufes his power, he is obliged to leave the city.
The number of counfellors is too {mall for the power of private families to be able to
" put a reftraint on the adminiftration of juftice and police. In a word, the legiflative
power is as gentle and popular as it can be; and the executive is, as it mu/? be, monar=
chically ftrong. Hamburgh is in truth the model of a well-regulated commonwealth.
A mifapplication or wafte of the public treafure happens very feldom, and is almoft im-
poflible, as the perfons who are charged with the adminiftration of it, are no members of
the council, but on the contrary are watched over with the greateft attention by them
and the general aflembly, and are obliged to the greateft punctuality. They confilt of
ten perfons felected from the general aflembly, and are chofen out of each parifh, one by
vote and the other by lot. Every fix years each of the three deputies lays his office
down, and his parifh fends another in his ftead. The reafon of the change is not as in
other republics, that all may have a fhare of the cake, but to free the deputies from a
troublefome and laborious office.
The income of the ftateis very large. It is made up partly from ftanding fources of
income, and partly from occafional taxes granted by the community. Some taxes are
voluntary, and the burghers have the right to put what they think their quota into the
purfe which is fhut, and the deputies dare not open in their prefence. | Upon the whole
the taxes are confiderable. In order not to let the mouth of the Elbe, on which the ex-
iftence of the country depends, be choked up with fand, and for the maintenance of the
feveral harbours in it, they have been obliged to raife fome taxes, which in appearance
are beyond their means. The aggregate of them together makes about 3,000,000
of marks, or 4,000,000 of livres, and is hardly fufficient for the purpofes required of
them.
The quick and conftant revolutions in the fortunes of every citizen fecure this com-
monwealth ftill more than its conftitution from the mifchiefs of oligarchy and family plots.
They know nothing here of domineering or dangerous houfes, {from which none of the
republics of the prefent day are free. One fign of the good government and wonderful
adminiftration of this commonwealth is, that it is almoft the only imperial city that car-
ries none of the fuits between its own members before the tribunal of the empire. At
Vienna they mentioned to me feveral free imperial towns who had rendered themfelves
dependant on the Emperor, by carrying their private grievances before the Emperor’s
court. In the beginning of this century Hamburgh itfelf was expofed to fome danger of
VOL. VI. FF this
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