If infatuation be, as the proverb tells us, the forerunner of destruction, how near must be the ruin of a nation that can be incited against its governors, by sophistry like this, I may be excused if I catch the panic, and join my groans at this alarming crisis, with the general lamentation of weeping patriots.

Another objection is, that the commons, by pronouncing the sentence of disqualification, make a law, and take upon themselves the power of the whole legislature. Many quotations are then produced to prove that the house of commons can make no laws.

Three acts have been cited, disabling members for different terms on different occasions; and it is profoundly remarked, that if the commons could by their own privilege have made a disqualification, their jealousy of their privileges would never have admitted the concurrent sanction of the other powers.

I must forever remind these puny controvertists, that those acts are laws of permanent obligation; that two of them are now in force, and that the other expired only when it had fulfilled its end. Such laws the commons cannot make; they could, perhaps, have determined for themselves, that they would expel all who should not take the test, but they could leave no authority behind them, that should oblige the next parliament to expel them. They could refuse the South Sea directors, but they could not entail the refusal. They can disqualify by vote, but not by law; they cannot know that the sentence of disqualification pronounced to-day may not become void to-morrow, by the dissolution of their own house. Yet while the same parliament sits, the disqualification continues unless the vote be rescinded, and while it so continues, makes the votes, which freeholders may give to the interdicted candidate, useless

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and dead, since there cannot exist, with respect to the same subject at the same time, an absolute power to choose and an absolute power to reject.

In 1614, the attorney-general was voted incapable of a seat in the house of commons: and the nation is triumphantly told, that though the vote never was revoked, the attorney-general is now a member. He certainly may now be a member without revocation of the vote. A law is of perpetual obligation, but a vote is nothing when the voters are gone. A law is a compact reciprocally made by the legislative powers, and therefore not to be abrogated but by all the parties. A vote is simply a resolution, which binds only him that is willing to be bound.

I have thus punctiliously and minutely pursued this disquisition, because I suspect that these reasoners, whose business it is to deceive others, have sometimes deceived themselves, and I am willing to free them from their embarrassment though I do not expect much gratitude for my kindness.

Other objections are yet remaining, for of political objections there cannot easily be an end. It has been observed, that vice is no proper cause of expulsion, for if the worst man in the house were always to be expelled, in time none would be left. But no man is exp pelled for being worst, he is expelled for being enor mously bad; his conduct is compared, not with that of others, but with the rule of action.

The punishment of expulsion being in its own nature uncertain, may be too great or too little for the fault.

This must be the case of many punishments. Forfeiture of chattels is nothing to him that has no possessions. Exile itself may be accidentally a good; and indeed any punishment less than death is very different to different men.

But if this precedent be admitted and established, no man can hereafter be sure that he shall be represented by him whom he would choose. One half of the house may meet early in the morning, and snatch an opportunity to expel the other, and the greater part of the nation may by this stratagem be without its lawful representatives.

He that sees all this, sees very far. But I can tell him of greater evils yet behind. There is one possibility of wickedness, which, at this alarming crisis, has not yet been mentioned. Every one knows the malice, the subtilty, the industry, the vigilance, and the greediness of the Scots. The Scotch members are about the number sufficient to make a house. I propose it to the consideration of the supporters of the bill of rights, whether there is not reason to suspect, that these hungry intruders from the north, are now contriving to expel all the English. We may then curse the hour in which it was determined, that expulsion and exclusion are the same. For who can guess what may be done when the Scots have the whole house to themselves?

Thus agreeable to custom and reason, notwithstanding all objections, real or imaginary; thus consistent with the practice of former times, and thus consequential to the original principles of government, is that decision by which so much violence of discontent has been excited, which has been so dolorously bewailed, and so outrageously resented.

Let us however not be seduced to put too much confidence in justice or in truth: they have often been found inactive in their own defence, and give more confidence than help to their friends and their advocates. It may perhaps be prudent to make one momentary concession to falsehood, by supposing the vote in Mr. Lutterel's favour to be wrong.

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All wrong ought to be rectified. If Mr. Wilkes is deprived of a lawful seat, both he and his electors have reason to complain; but it will not be easily found, why, among the innumerable wrongs of which a great part of mankind are hourly complaining, the whole care of the public should be transferred to Mr. Wilkes and the freeholders of Middlesex, who might all sink into nonexistence, without any other effect, than that there would be room made for a new rabble, and a new retailer of sedition and obscenity. The cause of our country would suffer little; the rabble, whencesoever they come, will be always patriots, and always supporters of the bill of rights.

The house of commons decides the disputes arising from elections. Was it ever supposed, that in all cases their decisions were right? Every man whose lawful election is defeated, is equally wronged with Mr. Wilkes, and his constituents feel their disappointment with no less anguish than the freeholders of Middlesex. These decisions have often been apparently partial, and sometimes tyrannically oppressive. A majority has been given to a favourite candidate, by expunging votes which had always been allowed, and which therefore had the authority by which all votes are given, that of custom uninterrupted. When the commons determine who shall be constituents, they may, with some propriety, be said to make law, because those determinations have hitherto, for the sake of quiet, been adopted by succeeding parliaments. A vote therefore of the house, when it operates as a law, is to individuals a law only temporary, but to communities perpetual.

Yet though all this has been done, and though at every new parliament much of this is expected to be done again, it has never produced in any former time

such an alarming crisis. We have found by experience, that though a squire has given ale and venison in vain, and a borough has been compelled to see its dearest interest in the hands of him whom it did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the same. The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and whatever talk has been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built a house was master of the door: the vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by any private man, or single community, was local and temporary, it neither spread far, nor lasted long.

The nation looked on with little care because there did not seem to be much danger. The consequence of small irregularities was not felt, and we had not yet learned to be terrified by very distant enemies.

But quiet and security are now at an end. Our vigilance is quickened, and our comprehension is enlarged. We not only see events in their causes, but before their causes; we hear the thunder while the sky is clear, and see the mine sprung before it is dug. Political wisdom has, by the force of English genius, been improved at last not only to political intuition but to political prescience.

But it cannot, I am afraid, be said, that as we are grown wise, we are made happy. It is said of those who have the wonderful power called second sight, that they seldom see any thing but evil: political second sight has the same effect; we hear of nothing but of an alarming crisis, of violated rights, and expiring liberties. The morning rises upon new wrongs, and the dreamer passes the night in imaginary shackles.

The sphere of anxiety is now enlarged; he that hitherto cared only for himself, now cares for the