character of a ftanding fenate. It is a diforder which has arifen from the cure of greater diforders; it has arifen from the extreme difficulty of reconciling liberty under a monarchial government, with external ftrength and with internal tranquillity.

It is very clear that we cannot free ourselves entirely from this great inconvenience; but I would not increase an evil, because I was not able to remove it; and because it was not in my power to keep the house of commons religioufly true to its first principles, I would not argue for carrying it to a total oblivion of them. This has been the great fcheme of power in our time. They who will not conform their conduct to the publick good, and cannot fupport it by the prerogative of the crown, have adopted a new plan. They have totally abandoned the shattered and old-fashioned fortrefs of prerogative, and made a lodgement in the strong hold of parliament itself. If they have any evil design to which there is no ordinary legal power commenfurate, they bring it into parliament. In parliament the whole is executed from the beginning to the end. In parliament the power of obtaining their object is abfolute; and the fafety in the proceeding perfect; no rules to confine, no after-reckonings to terrify. Parliament cannot with any great propriety punish others, for things in which they themfelves have been accomplices. U 24

Thus

Thus the controul of parliament upon the executory power is loft; becaufe parliament is made to partake in every confiderable act of government. Impeachment, that great guardian of the purity of the conftitution, is in danger of being loft, even to the idea of it.

By this plan feveral important ends are anfwered to the cabal. If the authority of parliament fupports itself, the credit of every act of governmentwhich they contrive, is faved; but if the act be fo very odious that the whole ftrength of parliament is infufficient to recommend it, then parliament is itself difcredited; and this difcredit increafes more and more that indifference to the conftitution, which it is the conftant aim of its enemies, by their abufe of parliamentary powers, to render general among the people. Whenever parliament is perfuaded to affume the offices of executive government, it will lofe all the confidence, love, and veneration, which it has ever enjoyed whilst it was fuppofed the corrective and controul of the acting powers of the state. This would be the event, though its conduct in fuch a perverfion of its functions fhould be tolerably juft and moderate; but if it fhould be iniquitous, violent, full of paffion, and full of faction, it would be confidered as the moft intolerable of all the modes of tyranny.

For a confiderable time this feparation of the re

presentatives

prefentatives from their conftituents went on with a filent progrefs; and had thofe, who conducted the plan for their total feparation, been perfons of temper and abilities any way equal to the magnitude of their defign, the fuccefs would have been infallible but by their precipitancy they have laid it open in all its nakednefs; the nation is alarmed at it and the event may not be pleasant to the contrivers of the fcheme. In the laft feffion, the corps called the king's friends made an hardy attempt all at once, to alter the right of election itfelf; to put it into the power of the houfe of commons to difable any perfon difagreeable to them from fitting in parliament, without any other rule than their own pleafure; to make incapacities, either general for defcriptions of men, or particular for individuals; and to take into their body, perfons who avowedly had never been chofen by the majority of legal electors, nor agreeably to any known rule of law.

The arguments upon which this claim was founded and combated, are not my bufinefs here. Never has a fubject been more amply and more learnedly handled, nor upon one fide in my opinion. more fatisfactorily; they who are not convinced by what is already written would not receive conviction though one arofe from the dead.

I too have thought on this fubject: but my purpofe here, is only to confider it as a part of the fa

vourite project of government; to obferve on the motives which led to it; and to trace its political confequences.

A violent rage for the punishment of Mr. Wilkes was the pretence of the whole. This gentleman, by fetting himself strongly in oppofition to the court cabal, had become at once an object of their perfecution, and of the popular favour. The hatred of the court party pursuing, and the countenance of the people protecting him, it very foon became not at all a question on the man, but a trial of ftrength between the two parties. The advantage of the victory in this particular conteft was the prefent,. but not the only, nor by any means the principal, object. Its operation upon the character of the houfe of commons was the great point in view. The point to be gained by the cabal was this; that a precedent should be established, tending to shew, That the favour of the people was not fo fure a road as the favour of the court even to popular honours and popular trufts. A ftrenuous refiftance to every appearance of lawless power; a fpirit of independence carried to fome degree of enthusiasm; an inquifitive character to discover, and a bold one to difplay, every corruption and every errour of government; thefe are the qualities which recommend a man to a feat in the house of commons, in open and merely popular elections, An indolent and fubmiffive difpofition; a difpo

fition to think charitably of all the actions of men in power, and to live in a mutual intercourfe of favours with them; an inclination rather to countenance a strong ufe of authority, than to bear any fort of licentioufnefs on the part of the people; thefe are unfavourable qualities in an open election for members of parliament.

The inftinct which carries the people towards the choice of the former, is juftified by reafon; becaufe a man of fuch a character, even in its exorbitances, does not directly contradict the purposes of a truft, the end of which is a controul on power. The latter character, even when it is not in its extreme, will execute this truft but very imperfectly; and, if deviating to the leaft excefs, will certainly fruftrate instead of forwarding the purposes of a controul on government. But when the house of commons was to be new modelled, this principle was not only to be changed but reverfed. Whilft any errours committed in fupport of power were left to the law, with every advantage of favourable conftruction, of mitigation, and finally of pardon; all exceffes on the fide of liberty, or in purfuit of popular favour, or in defence of popular rights and privileges, were not only to be punished by the rigour of the known law, but by a difcretionary proceeding which brought on the loss of the popular object itself. Popularity was to be rendered, if not directly penal, at leaft highly dangerous. The

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