friend, Dr. Price, informs us was propoſed in the convention of Maſſachuſett's.
The city was divided into fix diſtricts, called feſtiers. The council of forty propoſed, that each of theſe partitions ſhould name two electors, amounting to twelve in all, who ſhould have the power of chooſing, from the whole city, four hundred and ſeventy, who ſhould have the whole power of the general aſſembly, and be called the grand council.
The people were amuſed with fine promiſes of order and regularity, and conſoled with aſſertions that their right of election ſtill continued, and that thoſe who ſhould not be choſen one year, might be the next; and, not perceiving that this law would be fatal to their power, ſuffered that ariſtocracy to be thus founded, which ſubſiſts to this hour. The next propoſal was, that a committee of eleven ſhould be appointed, to name the doge. Though the deſign of reducing the people to nothing might have been eaſily ſeen in theſe manœeuvres, yet the people, wearied, irritated, and diſcouraged, by eternal diſcords, agreed to both.
The council of forty, having thus ſecured the people, turned their eyes to the doge, whoſe authority had often been perverted to the purpoſes of oppreſſion, and, having no legal check, had never been reſtrained but by violence, and all the confuſions which accompany it. They propoſed that a privy council of ſix ſhould be appointed for the doge, one from each diviſion of the city, by the grand council themſelves, and that no orders ſhould be valid without their concurrence: this paſſed into a law, with unanimous applauſe. They then propoſed a ſenate of ſixty, who were to be elected out of the grand council,
