denial, in the bufinefs of all times except their own. We are very uncorrupt and tolerably enlightened judges of the tranfactions of part ages; where no paffions deceive, and where the whole train of circumftances, from the trifling cause to the tragical event, is fet in an orderly feries before us. Few are the partizans of departed tyranny; and to be a Whig on the bufinefs of an hundred years ago, is very confiftent with every advantage of prefent fervility. This retrofpective wisdom, and hiftorical patriotism, are things of wonderful convenience; and ferve admirably to reconcile the old quarrel between fpeculation and practice. Many a ftern republican, after gorging himself with a full feaft of admiration of the Grecian commonwealths and of our true Saxon conftitution, and discharging all the fplendid bile of his virtuous indignation on King John and King James, fits down perfectly fatisfied to the coarseft work and homelieft job of the day he lives in. I believe there was no profeffed admirer of Henry the Eighth among the inftruments of the laft King James; nor in the court of Henry the Eighth, was there, I dare say, to be found a fingle advocate for the favourites of Richard the Second.

No complaifance to our Court, or to our age, can make me believe nature to be fo changed, but that public liberty will be among us, as among our ancestors, obnoxious to fome perfon or other; and that opportunities will be furnished, for attempting at leaft, fome alteration to the prejudice of our conftitution. These attempts

attempts will naturally vary in their mode according to times and circumstances. For ambition, though it has ever the fame general views, has not at all times the fame means, nor the fame particular objects. A great deal of the furniture of ancient tyranny is worn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion. Befides, there are few Statesmen fo very clumfy and awkward in their bufinefs, as to fall into the identical fnare which has proved fatal to their predeceffors. When an arbitrary impofition is attempted upon the fubject, undoubtedly it will not bear on its forehead the name of Shipmoney. There is no danger that an extenfion of the Foreft laws fhould be the chofen mode of oppreffion in this age. And when we hear any inftance of ministerial rapacity, to the prejudice of the rights of private life, it will certainly not be the exaction of two hundred pullets, from a woman of fashion, for leave to lie with her own husband *.

Every age has its own manners, and its politicks dependent upon them; and the fame attempts will not be made against a constitution fully formed and matured, that were used to destroy it in the cradle, or to refift its growth during its infancy.

Against the being of Parliament, I am fatisfied, no defigns have ever been entertained fince the

"Uxor Hugonis de Nevill dat Domino Regi ducentas "Gallinas, eo quod poffit jacere una nocte cum Domino "fuo Hugone de Nevill." Maddox, Hift. Exch. c. xiii. p. 326. Revolution.

Revolution. Every one must perceive, that it is ftrongly the intereft of the Court, to have fome fecond cause interpofed between the Ministers and the people. The gentlemen of the Houfe of Commons have an intereft equally strong, in fuftaining the part of that intermediate caufe. However they may hire out the ufufruct of their voices, they never will part with the fee and inheritance. Accordingly those who have been of the most known devotion to the will and pleasure of a Court, have at the fame time been moft forward in afferting an high authority in the House of Commons. When they knew who were to use that authority, and how it was to be employed, they thought it never could be carried too far. It must be always the wish of an unconstitutional Statesman, that an House of Commons who are entirely dependent upon him, should have every right of the people entirely dependant upon their pleasure. It was foon difcovered, that the forms of a free, and the ends of an arbitrary Government, were things not altogether incompatible.

The power of the Crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more ftrength, and far less odium, under the name of Influence. An influence, which operated without noise and without violence; an influence which converted the very antagonist, into the inftrument, of power; which contained in itself a perpetual principle of growth and renovation; and which the diftreffes and the profperity of the country equally tended to aug

ment,

ment, was an admirable substitute for a Prerogative, that, being only the offspring of antiquated prejudices, had moulded in its original stamina irrefiftible principles of decay and diffolution. The ignorance of the people is a bottom but for a temporary fyftem; the interest of active men in the State is a foundation perpetual and infallible. However, fome circumftances, arifing, it must be confeffed, in a great degree from accident, prevented the effects of this influence for a long time from breaking out in a manner capable of exciting any ferious apprehenfions. Although Government was ftrong and flourished exceedingly, the Court had drawn far lefs advantage than one would imagine from this great fource of power.

At the Revolution, the Crown, deprived, for the ends of the Revolution itself, of many prerogatives, was found too weak to struggle against all the difficulties which preffed fo new and unfettled a Government. The Court was obliged therefore to delegate a part of its powers to men of fuch intereft as could fupport, and of fuch fidelity as would adhere to, its eftablishment. Such men were able to draw in a greater number to a concurrence in the common defence. This connexion, neceffary at firft, continued long after convenient; and properly conducted might indeed, in all fituations, be an useful inftrument of Government. At the fame time, through the intervention of men of popular weight and character, the people poffeffed a fecurity for their juft portion of im

portance

portance in the State. But as the title to the Crown grew ftronger by long poffeffion, and by the constant increase of its influence, thefe helps have of late feemed to certain perfons no better than incumbrances. The powerful managers for Government were not fufficiently fubmiffive to the pleasure of the poffeffors of immediate and perfonal favour, fometimes from a confidence in their own strength natural and acquired; fometimes from a fear of offending their friends, and weakening that lead in the country, which gave them a confideration independent of the Court. Men acted as if the Court could receive, as well as confer, an obligation. The influence of Government, thus divided in appearance between the Court and the leaders of parties, became in many cafes an acceffion rather to the popular than to the royal scale; and fome part of that influence which would otherwife have been poffeffed as in a fort of mortmain and unalienable domain, returned again to the great ocean from whence it arofe, and circulated among the people. This method therefore of governing, by men of great natural intereft or great acquired confideration, was viewed in a very invidious light by the true lovers of abfolute monarchy. It is the nature of defpotism to abhor power held by any means but its own momentary pleasure; and to annihilate all intermediate fituations between boundless ftrength on its own part, and total debility on the part of the people.

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