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reign by kiffing his hand, for the offices, penfions, and grants, into which they have deceived his be nignity. May no ftorm ever come, which will put the firmness of their attachment to the proof; and which, in the midft of confufions, and terrours, and fufferings, may demonftrate the eternal difference between a true and fevere friend to the monarchy, and a flippery fycophant of the court! Quantum infido fcurræ diftabit amicus.

So far I have confidered the effect of the court

fyftem, chiefly as it operates upon the executive government, on the temper of the people, and on the happiness of the fovereign. It remains, that we fhould confider, with a little attention, its operation upon parliament.

Parliament was indeed the great object of all these politicks, the end at which they aimed, as well as the inftrument by which they were to operate. But, before parliament could be made fubfervient to a fyftem, by which it was to be degraded from the dignity of a national council, into a mere member of the court, it must be greatly changed from its original character.

In fpeaking of this body, I have my eye chiefly on the house of commons. I hope I fhall be indulged in a few obfervations on the nature and character of that affembly; not with regard to its legal form and power, but to its spirit, and to the purposes it is meant to answer in the conftitution.

The house of commons was fuppofed originally to be no part of the standing government of this country. It was confidered as a controul, iffuing immediately from the people, and speedily to be refolved into the mafs from whence it arofe. In this refpect it was in the higher part of government what juries are in the lower. The capacity of a magiftrate being tranfitory, and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capacity it was hoped would of courfe preponderate in all difcuffions, not only between the people and the standing authority of the crown, but between the people and the fleeting authority of the house of commons itfelf. It was hoped that, being of a middle nature between fubject and government, they would feel with a more tender and a nearer intereft every thing that concerned the people, than the other remoter and more permanent parts of legislature.

Whatever alterations time and the neceffary accommodation of business may have introduced, this character can never be fuftained, unless the ་ ། houfe of commons fhall be made to bear fome ftamp of the actual difpofition of the people at large. It would (among publick misfortunes) be an evil more natural and tolerable, that the house of commons fhould be infected with every epidemical phrenfy of the people, as this would indicate fome confanguinity, fome fympathy of nature with their conftituents, than that they fhould in all cafes be

wholly

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wholly untouched by the opinions and feelings of the people out of doors. By this want of sympathy they would ceafe to be a houfe of commons. For it is not the derivation of the power of that house from the people, which makes it in a distinct fenfe their reprefentative. The king is the repre→ fentative of the people; fo are the lords; fo are the judges. They all are trustees for the people, as well as the commons; becaufe no power is gi ven for the fole fake of the holder; and although government certainly is an inftitution of divine authority, yet its forms, and the perfons who adminifter it, all originate from the people.

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A popular origin cannot therefore be the characteriftical diftinction of a popular reprefentative. This belongs equally to all parts of government, and in all forms. The virtue, fpirit, and effence of a houfe of commons confifts in its being the expreis image of the feelings of the nation. It was not inftituted to be a controul upon the people, as of late it has been taught, by a doctrine of the moft pernicious tendency. It was defigned as a controul for the people. Other inftitutions have been formed for the purpofe of checking popular exceffes; and they are, I apprehend, fully adequate to their object. If not, they ought to be made fo. The houfe of commons, as it was never intended for the fupport of peace and fubordination, is miferably appointed for that fervice; having no stronger

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ftronger weapon than its mace, and no better officer than its ferjeant at arms, which it can command of its own proper authority. A vigilant and jealous eye over executory and judicial magiftracy; an anxious care of publick money, an openness, approaching towards facility, to publick complaint: these feem to be the true characteristicks of a houfe of commons. But an addreffing house of commons, and a petitioning nation; a house of commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in defpair; in the utmost harmony with ministers, whom the people regard with the utmost abhorrence; who vote thanks, when the publick opinion calls upon them for impeachments; who are eager to grant, when the general voice demands account; who, in all difputes between the people and administration, prefume against the people; who punish their disorders, but refufe even to inquire into the provocations to them; this is an unnatural, a monftrous state of things in this conftitution. Such an affembly may be a great, wife, awful fenate; but it is not to any popular purpose a house of commons. This change from an immediate ftate of procuration and delegation to a course of acting as from original power, is the way in which all the popular magistracies in the world have been perverted from their purposes. It is indeed their greatest and fometimes their incurable corruption. For there is a material dif- ' VOL. II. tinction

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tinction between that corruption by which parti cular points are carried against reafon, (this is a thing which cannot be prevented by human wifdom, and is of lefs confequence) and the corruption of the principle itself. For then the evil is not accidental, but fettled. The diftemper becomes the natural habit.

For my part, I fhall be compelled to conclude the principle of parliament to be totally corrupted, and therefore its ends entirely defeated, when I fee two fymptoms; first, a rule of indifcriminate fupport to all minifters; because this deftroys the very end of parliament as a controul, and is a general previous fanétion to mifgovernment; and fecondly, the fetting up any claims adverfe to the right of free election; for this tends to fubvert the legal authority by which the houfe of commons

fits.

I know that, fince the Revolution, along with many dangerous, many useful powers of government have been weakened. It is abfolutely neceffary to have frequent recourfe to the legiflature. Parliaments muft therefore fit every year, and for great part of the year. The dreadful diforders of frequentelections have alfo neceffitated a feptennial inftead of a triennial duration. Thefe circumftances, I mean the conftant habit of authority, and the unfrequency of elections, have tended very much to draw the houfe of commons towards the character

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