awe of Parliaments, and Parliaments in reverence with the people. If the ufe of this power of controul on the fyftem and perfons of Adminiftration is gone, every thing is loft, Parliament and all. We may affure ourselves, that if Parliament will tamely fee evil men take poffeffion of all the ftrong-holds of their country, and allow them time and means to fortify themfelves, under a pretence of giving them a fair trial, and upon a hope of discovering, whether they will not be reformed by power, and whether their measures will not be better than their morals; such a Parliament will give countenance to their meafures alfo, whatever that Parliament may pretend, and whatever those meafures may be.

Every good political inftitution must have a preventive operation as well as a remedial. It ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men from Government, and not to truft for the safety of the State to fubfequent punishment alone: punishment, which has ever been tardy and uncertain; and which, when power is fuffered in bad hands, may chance to fall rather on the injured than the criminal.

Before men are put forward into the great trufts of the State, they ought by their conduct to have obtained fuch a degree of estimation in their country, as may be fome fort of pledge and fecurity to the publick, that they will not abuse thofe trufts. It is no mean fecurity for a proper ufe of power, that a man has fhewn by the general tenor of his actions, that the affection,

the

the good opinion, the confidence, of his fellow citizens have been among the principal objects of his life; and that he has owed none of the gradations of his power or fortune to a settled contempt, or occafional forfeiture of their efteem.

That man who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to defert his friends, or who lofing it has no friends to fympathize with him; he who has no fway among any part of the landed or commercial intereft, but whofe whole importance has begun with his office, and is fure to end with it; is a perfon who ought never to be fuffered by a controuling Parliament to continue in any of thofe fituations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs; because fuch a man has no connexion with the intereft of the people.

Thofe knots or cabals of men who have got together, avowedly without any public principle, in order to fell their conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore univerfally odious, ought never to be fuffered to domineer in the State; because they have no connexion with the Sentiments and opinions of the people..

These are confiderations which in my opinion enforce the neceffity of having fome better rea→ fon, in a free country, and a free Parliament, for fupporting the Minifters of the Crown, than that short one, That the King has thought proper to appoint them. There is fomething very courtly in this. But it is a principle pregnant with all

forts

forts of mischief, in a conftitution like ours, to turn the views of active men from the country to the Court. Whatever be the road to power, that is the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no use as a means of power or confideration, the qualities which usually procure that opinion will be no longer cultivated. And whether it will be right, in a State fo popular in its conftitution as ours, to leave ambition without popular motives, and to truft all to the operation of pure virtue in the minds of Kings and Minifters, and public men, must be fubmitted to the judgement and good sense of the people of England.

Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, without directly controverting the principle, to raise objections from the difficulty under which the Sovereign labours, to distinguish the genuine voice and fentiments of his people, from the clamour of a faction, by which it is fo eafily counterfeited. The nation, they say, is generally divided into parties, with views and paffions utterly irreconcileable. If the King Thould put his affairs into the hands of any one of them, he is fure to disgust the reft; if he felect particular men from among them all, it is an hazard that he difgufts them all. Thofe who are left out, however divided before, will foon run into a body of oppofition; which, being a collection, of many difcontents into one focus, will without doubt be hot and violent enough. Faction will make its cries refound through the nation, as if the whole were in an uproar,

when by far the majority, and much the better part, will feem for a while as it were annihilated by the quiet in which their virtue and moderation incline them to enjoy the bleffings of Government. Befides that the opinion of the meer vulgar is a miserable rule even with regard to themselves, on account of their violence and inftability. So that if you were to gratify them in their humour to-day, that very gratification would be a ground of their diffatisfaction on the next. Now as all these rules of public opinion are to be collected with great difficulty, and to be applied with equal uncertainty as to the effect, what better can a King of England do, than to employ fuch men as he finds to have views and inclinations most conformable to his own; who are least infected with pride and felf-will, and who are least moved by fuch popular humours as are perpetually traverfing his defigns, and disturbing his service; trusting that, when he means no ill to his people, he will be fupported in his appointments, whether he chooses to keep or to change, as his private judgement or his pleasure leads him? He will find a fure refource in the real weight and influence of the Crown, when it is not suffered to become an inftrument in the hands of a faction.

I will not pretend to fay that there is nothing at all in this mode of reasoning; because I will not affert, that there is no difficulty in the art of Government. Undoubtedly the very best Administration must encounter a great deal of oppofition; and the very worst will find more

support

fupport than it deferves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting to those who have a mind to deceive themselves. It is a fallacy in conftant use with those who would level all things, and confound right with wrong, to infift upon the inconveniencies which are attached to every choice, without taking into confideration the different weight and confequence of those inconveniencies. The queftion is not concerning abfolute discontent or perfect fatisfaction in Government; neither of which can be pure and unmixed at any time, or upon any system. The controverfy is about that degree of goodhumour in the people, which may poffibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for. While fome politicians may be waiting to know whether the sense of every individual be against them, accurately diftinguishing the vulgar from the better fort, drawing lines between the enterprizes of a faction and the efforts of a people, they may chance to fee the Government, which they are so nicely weighing, and dividing, and distinguishing, tumble to the ground in the midst of their wife deliberation. Prudent men, when so great an object as the fecurity of Government, or even its peace, is at stake, will not run the rifque of a decifion which may be fatal to it. They who can read the political fky will fee an hurricane in a cloud no bigger than an hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first harbour. No lines. can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a matter incapable of exact definition.

E

But,