not only from their being convinced that his Lordfhip is the laft man in the kingdom whofe advice he would chufe to take, or whofe example he would wish to follow, but from the ftill ftronger reason of their being perfectly affured that no confideration under Heaven would induce him to abandon an object which he believes effential to the happiness of his country. The arguments of those who, in the course of the debate, have endeavoured to combat the propriety of this motion, feem to be reducible to three specific objections: the first is, that the people do not wifh for a reform in Parliament. The second is, that whatever may be the wishes of the people, a reform in Parliament would be highly prejudicial to the interests of the public. The last is, that, abftractedly from all other confiderations, this particular mode of effecting a reform in Parliament is dangerous, and the time highly inexpedient. To each of these objections it is easy to reply: my arguments will be fhort and few.

In the first place, it is faid the people do not wish for a reform. In answer to this affertion, I can appeal with confidence to the language of the most popular candidates in all the popular elections; for if we may judge of the wifhes of the people by the arguments which thofe, who are candidates for their favour, make use of to conciliate their esteem, we must be convinced that a Parliamentary Reform is, of all objects, that which the people have most at heart.

The noble Lord has faid, that he believes no House of Commons more popular than the present has ever exifted in the kingdom-none, for fo he must mean, that ever enjoyed, in a more ample degree, the good opinion and confidence of the people. I perfectly agree with him in this belief, and therefore I am confident that a reform in Parliament, which was always the public wish, is now, perhaps, for the first time, the public expectation too: for the people are perfuaded, that whatever were the sentiments of the late Parliament, you will not blame their endeavours to procure, not that ideal and abfurd equality

which the noble Lord ridicules and condemns, but that enlargement of their political freedom which is effential to the fecurity of their civil rights. They wish to place as many guards as poffible around those high privileges, which they alone, of all the principal nations of Europe, continue to enjoy, but which they well know must ceafe with them also, whenever they shall cease to be the constant objects of their care.

They are confident, therefore, that you will.not blame their zeal, if following the example of their ancestors, they endeavour to preserve their conftitution, by arresting the progress of abuse, and by endeavouring to obtain fuch new regulations as the common sense and the common feelings of mankind recommend. To that common fenfe and to thofe feelings they appeal, from the affertions of the noble Lord, when he declares, that for a reform of Parliament there is no plea, either of neceffity or use; for they afk, "Is it not unwife to give to an 66 agent such a continuance of power as muft render him inde"pendent of his employers, and encourage him to use, for his " own benefit, that authority that was given him for theirs? "In private life, this would be considered as the excess of "folly; in public life, it is impoffible it should be wisdom."

The people, fays the noble Lord, have no reason to wish for a reform. They think they have the most forcible of all reafons, a certainty founded on their own experience, that no delegated power will long be faithfully exercifed, unless it frequently return to those by whom it was bestowed.

Are they asked for proofs of this affertion, their answer is, " a national debt of 250 millions;" a debt which no credulity can believe the people themselves would have contracted; which no credulity can believe the representatives of the peo ple would have contracted, if they had had no interest but that of the people; a debt, of which we know that much has been contracted in a way that profligacy itself will not dare to juftify; for in one fingle year, to fay nothing of other years, to charge twenty-one millions of money to the national account,

when only twelve millions were borrowed, is a transaction which no man living will have the hardihood, in the face of his country, to defend.

The noble Lord talks of a reform in Parliament as of entire ruin to the Conftitution. The people will tell him that they have not forgotten, though it feems he has, that within the memory of perfons now living the Parliaments of this country were triennial; they will tell him, that to this hour they must have continued triennial, if the first principles of the Conftitution had not been abandoned, and its moft facred rules groffly and indecently violated; for if there is any one maxim of the Conftitution which, more than another, challenges particular regard; if there is any one to which a peculiar fanctity belongs, it is the maxim that the Houfe of Commons fhall be appointed by the people; whereas that House of Commons that repealed the Triennial Act was, as to the laft four years of its exiftence, felf-appointed. The people empowered them to make laws, they did not empower them to make legiflators.

To reftore to the people a benefit, of which they were fo unconftitutionally, fo unjustly, fo tyrannically deprived, is an object which every friend to the people must have most fincerely at heart.

I know I fhall be told, that if triennial Parliaments fhould be restored, the expence, by being doubly frequent, would become an intolerable evil. My answer is, that if the evil fhould be intolerable, it must be of fhort continuance; its magnitude will enforce correction; and indeed there is much reafon to believe, that till the frequency of elections fhall have made the expence intolerable, no effectual law for restraining that expence ever will be paffed.

The noble Lord has defcribed the defects in our present Conftitution as blemishes of no account, as fpots which the sharpest eye finds it difficult to trace, On behalf of the people, permit me to tell his Lordship what they think of thefe fhadowy defects, thefe blemishes of difficult difcernment. Is it not, they

fay,

fay, contrary to all reason, that lefs than feven thousand electors fhould return a majority of the reprefentatives of feven millions of people? Is it not unjust in the highest degree, that twelve electors fhould return twelve members of Parliament, when the whole city of London returns but four? Is it not the excess of folly that places without inhabitants, and without houses, fhould have reprefentatives in Parliament, when Manchester, and Leeds, and Birmingham, have none? Sir, the people know not in what fenfe of the word the late Houfe of Commons could be called their reprefentatives, "when their language (fay they) was contrary to our fentiments, and their conduct abhorrent to our wishes."

The noble Lord tells us, that the late House of Commons was not charged with being too much fubjected to the influence of the Crown; they were not, he says, diffolved for this crime. Sir, the late Houfe of Commons were accused of not fpeaking the fenfe of their conftituents; this was the offence for which they were diffolved. From the dangerous defigns of that House of Commons, the interference of the Crown has fortunately faved us; but let us not therefore think that the Conftitution is fecure: for what if the Crown, at fome future period, fhould join the House of Commons against the People-What if the illegal decrees of the Houfe of Commons fhould be fupported by the army; thofe peace officers, as they have been called, with bayonets in their hands-Where then will be found the boafted fecurity of the British Conftitution? Where then will be the difference between the freedom of England and the flavery of France?

The noble Lord feems to be impreffed with melancholy ap prehenfions of the dangers that may follow the appointment of fuch a Committee as the motion before you defcribes. For my own part, I cannot think fo irreverently of the House as to believe that the number it contains of wife and moderate men is fo small, as not to furnish the very few that are requifite to compofe a Select Committee. I am confident that a

large

large proportion of the Houfe confifts of men whofe zeal is tempered with prudence, whofe ardour is guided by knowledge, and who think, that were they named to fuch a Committee, their business would be not to invent systems of ideal, unattainable good, but to point out to the House the defects in the present state of the representation of the people, and to fuggeft fuch remedies to thofe defects as are beft fuited to the laws, and most confonant to the genius of the Confti

tution.

Some of thofe gentlemen who preceded the noble Lord in the debate have objected to the motion, from an idea that the present is not the season for deciding on business of such infinite importance.

Sir, I am convinced, and I fpeak it with much concern, that a reform in Parliament is a matter of immediate neceffity; for when the executive power of our Eaft-India dominions fhall be placed in the Crown, and no where else can it be conftitutionally placed, who does not forefee that, without a reform in Parliament, an overwhelming influence will bear down the ftrongest barriers of the Conftitution? The noble Lord will advise us to vest the government of our India poffeffions in Commiffioners appointed by Parliament, and to give executive power to the delegates of the people. But God forbid that his advice fhould be followed, for that would be to destroy the very foundations of our Government, and to break up the very ground on which the Conftitution ftands! On the other hand, it equally concerns us to beware of increafing the power of the Crown, without ftrengthening at the fame time the fences of the people's freedom.

To avoid the evils of this unhappy dilemma, that of an immediate furrender of our Conftitution on the one hand, or on the other that of destroying the balance of its powers, which muft ultimately terminate in its ruin, no other way prefents itself to our choice, but that of fhortening the duration of Parliaments, and guarding against an increase in the influ

ence