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gared his Exchequer, tarnished the fplendor of his Court, funk his dignity, galled his feelings, difcompofed the whole order and happiness of his private life?

It will be very hard, I believe, to state in what refpect the King has profited by that Faction which prefumptuously choose to call themfelves his friends.

If particular men had grown into an attachment, by the distinguished honour of the fociety of their Sovereign; and, by being the partakers of his amusements, came fometimes to prefer the gratification of his perfonal inclinations to the fupport of his high character, the thing would be very natural, and it would be excufable enough. But the pleasant part of the story is, that thefe King's friends have no more ground for ufurping fuch a title, than a refident freeholder in Cumberland or in Cornwall. They are only known to their Sovereign by kiffing his hand, for the offices, penfions, and grants, into which they have deceived his benignity. May no ftorm ever come, which will put the firmness of their attachment to the proof; and which, in the midft of confufions, and terrors, and fufferings, may demonftrate the eternal difference between a true and fevere friend to the Monarchy, and a flippery fycophant of the Court! Quantum infido fcurra diftabit amicus.

So far I have confidered the effect of the Court system, chiefly as it operates upon the executive Government, on the temper of the people, and on the happiness of the Sovereign. It remains, F

that

that we should confider, with a little attention, its operation upon Parliament.

Parliament was indeed the great object of all these politicks, the end at which they aimed, as well as the inftrument by which they were to operate. But, before Parliament could be made fubfervient to a fyftem, by which it was to be degraded from the dignity of a national council, into a mere member of the Court, it must be greatly changed from its original character.

In fpeaking of this body, I have my eye chiefly on the Houfe of Commons. I hope I fhall be indulged in a few obfervations on the nature and character of that affembly; not with regard to its legal form and power, but to its Spirit, and to the purpofes it is meant to answer in the conftitution.

The House of Commons was fuppofed originally to be no part of the standing Government of this country. It was confidered as a controul, iffuing immediately from the people, and speedily

to be refolved into the mass from whence it arofe. In this refpect it was in the higher part of Government what juries are in the lower. The capacity of a magiftrate being tranfitory, and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capacity it was hoped would of courfe preponderate in all difcuffions, not only between the people and the standing authority of the Crown, but between the people and the fleeting authority of the House of Commons itfelf. It was hoped that, being of a middle nature between subject and Government, they would feel with a more tender and a nearer

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interest every thing that concerned the people, than the other remoter and more permanent parts of Legislature.

Whatever alterations time and the neceffary accommodation of bufinefs may have introduced, this character can never be fuftained, unless the House of Commons fhall be made to bear fome ftamp of the actual difpofition of the people at large. It would (among public misfortunes) be an evil more natural and tolerable, that the House of Commons fhould be infected with every epidemical phrenfy of the people, as this would indicate fome confanguinity, fome fympathy of nature with their conftituents, than that they should in all cafes be wholly untouched by the opinions and feelings of the people out of doors. By this want of fympathy they would cease to be an House of Commons. For it is not the derivation of the power of that House from the people, which makes it in a distinct fense their reprefentative. The King is the representative of the people; fo are the Lords; fo are the Judges. They all are truftees for the people, as well as the Commons; because no power is given for the fole fake of the holder; and although Government certainly is an institution of Divine authority, yet its forms, and the perfons who administer it, all originate from the people. A popular origin cannot therefore be the characteristical distinction of a popular reprefentative. This belongs equally to all parts of Government, and in all forms. The virtue, fpirit, and effence of a House of Commons confifts in its being the

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exprefs

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exprefs image of the feelings of the nation. It was not inftituted to be a controul upon the people, as of late it has been taught, by a doctrine of the most pernicious tendency. It was defigned as a controul for the people. Other inftitutions have been formed for the purpose of checking popular exceffes; and they are, I apprehend, fully adequate to their object. If not, they ought to be made fo. The House of Commons, as it was never intended for the support of peace and fubordination, is miferably appointed for that fervice; having no ftronger weapon than its Mace, and no better officer than its Serjeant at Arms, which it can command of its own proper authority. A vigilant and jealous eye over executory and judicial magiftracy; an anxious care of public money, an openness, approaching towards facility, to public complaint: thefe feem to be the true characteristics of an House of Commons. But an addreffing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation; an House of Commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in despair; in the utmost harmony with Minifters, whom the people regard with the utmoft abhorrence; who vote thanks, when the public opinion calls upon them for impeachments; who are eager to grant, when the general voice. demands account; who, in all difputes between the people and Adminiftration, prefume againft the people; who punish their diforders, but refufe even to enquire into the provocations to them; this is an unnatural, a monstrous ftate of things in this constitution. Such an Affembly may

be a

great,

great, wife, aweful Senate; but it is not to any popular purpose an House of Commons. This change from an immediate ftate of procuration. and delegation to a course of acting as from original power, is the way in which all the popular magiftracies in the world have been perverted from their purposes. It is indeed their greatest and fometimes their incurable corruption. For there is a material diftinction between that corruption by which particular points are carried against reason, (this is a thing which cannot be prevented by human wisdom, and is of lefs confequence) and the corruption of the principle itfelf. For then the evil is not accidental, but fettled. The distemper becomes the natural habit.

For my part, I fhall be compelled to conclude the principle of Parliament to be totally corrupted, and therefore its ends entirely defeated, when I fee two fymptoms: first, a rule of indifcriminate fupport to all Minifters; because this deftroys the very end of Parliament as a controul, and is a general previous fanction to mifgovernment and fecondly, the fetting up any claims adverse to the right of free election; for this tends to fubvert the legal authority by which the House of Commons fits.

I know that, fince the Revolution, along with many dangerous, many ufeful powers of Government have been weakened. It is abfolutely neceffary to have frequent recourfe to the Legislature. Parliaments must therefore fit every year, and for great part of the year. The dreadful diforders of frequent elections have alfo neceffitated

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