that dignity which parliament had defined and li mited to a legal standard. They gave themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the honour of the crown, a full loose for all manner of diffipation, and all manner of corruption. This arbitrary ftandard they were not afraid to hold out to both houfes; while an idle and unoperative act of parliament, estimating the dignity of the crown at 800,000l. and confining it to that fum, adds to the number of obfolete ftatutes which load the fhelves of libraries without any fort of advantage to the people.

After this proceeding, I fuppofe that no man can be fo weak as to think that the crown is limited to any fettled allowance whatfoever. For if the miniftry has 800,000l. a year by the law of the land; and if by the law of parliament all the debts which exceed it are to be paid previous to the production of any account; I prefume that this is equivalent to an income with no other limits than the abilities of the fubject and the moderation of the court; that is to fay, it is fuch an income as is poffeffed by every abfolute monarch in Europe. It amounts, as a perfon of great ability faid in the debate, to an unlimited power of drawing upon the finking fund. Its effect on the publick credit of this kingdom muft be obvious; for in vain is the finking fund the great buttress of all the reft, if it be in the power of the miniftry to refort

refort to it for the payment of any debts which they may choofe to incur, under the name of the civil lift, and through the medium of a committee, which thinks itself obliged by law to vote fupplies without any other account than that of the mere exiftence of the debt.

Five hundred thousand pounds is a ferious fum. But it is nothing to the prolifick principle upon which the fum was voted: a principle that may be well called, the fruitful mother of an hundred more. Neither is the damage to publick credit of very great confequence, when compared with that which refults to publick morals and to the fafety of the conftitution, from the exhauftlefs mine of corruption opened by the precedent, and to be wrought by the principle, of the late payment of the debts of the civil lift. The power of difcretionary difqualification by one law of parliament, and the neceffity of paying every debt of the civil lift by another law' of parliament, if fuffered to pafs unnoticed, muft eftablifh fuch a fund of rewards and terrours as will make parliament the best appendage and fupport of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the representatives and the people. The court faction have at length committed them.

In fuch a strait the wifeft may well be perplexed, and the boldest staggered. The circumstances are

in

in a great measure new. We have hardly any land-marks from the wisdom of our ancestors, to guide us. At best we can only follow the spirit of their proceeding in other cafes. I know the diligence with which my obfervations on our publick diforders have been made; I am very fure of the integrity of the motives on which they are published: I cannot be equally confident in any plan for the abfolute cure of thofe diforders, or for their certain future prevention. My aim is to bring this matter into more publick difcuffion. Let the fagacity of others work upon it. It is not uncommon for medical writers to defcribe hiftories of diseases very accurately, on whose cure they can fay but very little.

The firft ideas which generally fuggeft themfelves, for the cure of parliamentary disorders, are, to shorten the duration of parliaments; and to difqualify all, or a great number of placemen, from a feat in the houfe of commons. Whatever efficacy there may be in those remedies, I am fure in the prefent ftate of things it is impoffible to apply them. A restoration of the right of free election is a preliminary indifpenfable to every other reformation. What alterations ought afterwards to be made in the constitution, is a matter of deep and difficult refearch.

If I wrote merely to please the popular palate, it would indeed be as little troublefome to me as

to another, to extol thefe remedies, fo famous in fpeculation, but to which their greateft admirers have never attempted seriously to refort in practice. I confefs then, that I have no fort of reliance upon either a triennial parliament, or a placebill. With regard to the former, perhaps it might rather ferve to counteract, than to promote the ends that are propofed by it. To fay nothing of the horrible diforders among the people attending frequent elections, I fhould be fearful of committing, every three years, the independent gentlemen of the country into a conteft with the treafury. It is eafy to fee which of the contending parties would be ruined first. Whoever has taken a careful view of publick proceedings, fo as to endeavour to ground his fpeculations on his experience, must have obferved how prodigiously greater the power of miniftry is in the firft and laft feffion of a parliament, than it is in the intermediate period, when members fit a little firm on their feats. The perfons of the greatest parliamentary experience, with whom I have converfed, did conftantly, in canvaffing the fate of questions, allow fomething to the court fide, upon account of the elections depending or imminent. The evil complained of, if it exifts in the prefent ftate of things, would hardly be removed by a triennial parliament: for, unless the influence of government in elections can be entirely taken away, the

more

more frequently they return, the more they will harrafs private independence; the more generally men will be compelled to fly to the fettled fyftematick intereft of government, and to the refources of a boundless civil lift. Certainly fomething may be done, and ought to be done, towards leffening that influence in elections; and this will be neceffary upon a plan either of longer or fhorter duration of parliament. But nothing can fo perfectly remove the evil, as not to render fuch contentions, too frequently repeated, utterly ruinous, first to independence of fortune, and then to independence of fpirit. As I am only giving an opinion on this point, and not at all debating it in an adverfe line, I hope I may be excused in another obfervation. With great truth I may aver, that I never remember to have talked on this fubject with any man much converfant with publick bufinefs, who confidered fhort parliaments as a real improvement of the conftitution. Gentlemen, warm in a popular caufe, are ready enough to attribute all the declarations of fuch perfons to corrupt motives. But the habit of affairs, if, on one hand, it tends to corrupt the mind, furnishes it, on the other, with the means of better information. The authority of fuch perfons will always have fome weight. It may ftand upon a par with the fpeculations of those who are lefs practised in bufinefs; and who, with perhaps purer intentions,