The council of regency, to whom the general adminiſtration of affairs is intruſted, is compoſed of forty ſenators, thirteen from the city, and twenty-ſeven from the country.
The city, moreover, has its chief, its council, and its officers apart, and every one of the other quarters has the ſame.
It is a total miſapplication of words to call this government a ſimple democracy; for, although the people are accounted for ſomething, and indeed for more than in moll other free governments; in other words, although it is a free republic, it is rather a confederation of four or five republics, each of which has its monarchical, ariſtocratical, and democratical branches, than a ſimple democracy. The confederation too has its three branches; the general aſſembly, the regency of ſenators, and the land amman; being different orders tempering each other, as really as the houſe, council, and governor, in any of the United States of America.
LETTER IX.
URI.
My dear Sir,
THE canton of Uri, the place of the birth and reſidence of William Tell, ſhook off the yoke of Auſtria in 1308, and, with Switz and Underwald, laid the foundation of the perpetual alliance of the cantons, in 1315. The canton conſiſts only of villages and little towns or bour-
