. neceffitated a feptennial inftead of a triennial duration. These circumftances, I mean the conftant habit of authority, and the unfrequency of elections, have tended very much to draw the House of Commons towards the character of a standing Senate. It is a diforder which has arifen from the cure of greater disorders; it has arifen from the extreme difficulty of reconciling liberty under a monarchical Government, with external ftrength and with internal tranquillity. It is very clear that we cannot free ourselves entirely from this great inconvenience; but I would not increase an evil, because I was not able to remove it; and because it was not in my power to keep the House of Commons religiously true to its first principles, I would not argue for carrying it to a total oblivion of them. This has been the great scheme of power in our time. They who will not conform their conduct to the public good, and cannot fupport it by the prerogative of the Crown, have adopted a new plan. They have totally abandoned the thattered and old-fashioned fortrefs of prerogative, and made a lodgement in the ftrong-hold of Parlia ment itself. If they have any evil defign to which there is no ordinary legal power commenfurate, they bring it into Parliament. Parliament the whole is executed from the beginning to the end. In Parliament the power of obtaining their object is abfolute; and the fafety in the proceeding perfect; no rules to confine, no after reckonings to terrify. Parliament In cannot cannot with any great propriety punish others, for things in which they themselves have been accomplices. Thus the controul of Parliament upon the executory power is loft; because Parliament is made to partake in every confiderable act of Government. Impeachment, that great guardian of the purity of the Conftitution, is in danger of being loft, even to the idea of it. By this plan feveral important ends are answered to the Cabal. If the authority of Parliament fupports itself, the credit of every act of Govern, ment which they contrive, is faved; but if the act be so very odious that the whole ftrength of Parliament is infufficient to recommend it, then Parliament is itself difcredited; and this difcredit increases more and more that indifference to the conftitution, which it is the conftant aim of its enemies, by their abufe of Parliamentary powers, to render general among the people. Whenever Parliament is perfuaded to affume the offices of executive Government, it will lofe all the confidence, love, and veneration, which it has ever enjoyed whilst it was fuppofed the corrective and controul of the acting powers of the State. This would be the event, though its conduct in fuch a perverfion of its functions fhould be tolerably just and moderate; but if it fhould be iniquitous, violent, full of paffion, and full of faction, it would be confidered as the most intolerable of all the modes of tyranny. For a confiderable time this feparation of the reprefentatives from their conftituents went on with a filent progrefs; and had those, who conducted F 4 ducted the plan for their total feparation, been perfons of temper and abilities any way equal to the magnitude of their defign, the fuccefs would have been infallible: but by their precipitancy they have laid it open in all its nakedness; the nation is alarmed at it: and the event may not be pleafant to the contrivers of the scheme. In the last feffion, the corps called the King's friends made an hardy attempt all at once, to alter the right of election itself; to put it into the power of the Houfe of Commons to difable any perfon difagreeable to them from fitting in Parliament, without any other rule than their own pleasure; to make incapacities, either general for defcriptions of men, or particular for individuals; and to take into their body, perfons who avowedly had never been chofen by the majority of legal electors, nor agreeably to any known rule of law. The arguments upon which this claim was founded and combated, are not my business here. Never has a fubject been more amply and more learnedly handled, nor upon one fide in my opinion more fatisfactorily; they who are not convinced by what is already written would not receive conviction though one arose from the dead. I too have thought on this fubject: but my purpose here, is only to confider it as a part of the favourite project of Government; to observe on the motives which led to it; and to trace its political confequences. A violent rage for the punishment of Mr. Wilkes was the pretence of the whole. This gentleman, by fetting himself strongly in oppo fition fition to the Court Cabal, had become at once an object of their perfecution, and of the popular favour. The hatred of the Court Party pursu ing, and the countenance of the people protecting him, it very foon became not at all a question on the man, but a trial of ftrength between the two parties. The advantage of the victory in this particular conteft was the prefent, but not the only, nor by any means the principal, object. Its operation upon the character of the House of Commons was the great point in view. The point to be gained by the Cabal was this; that a precedent should be established, tending to fhew, That the favour of the People was not fo fure a road as the favour of the Court even to popular honours and popular trufts. A ftrenuous refiftance to every appearance of lawless power; a fpirit of independence carried to fome degree of enthufiasm; an inquifitive character to discover, and a bold one to display, every corruption and every error of Government; these are the qualities which recommend a man to a feat in the House of Commons, in open and merely popular elections. An indolent and fubmiffive difpofition; a difpofition to think charitably of all the actions of men in power, and to live in a mutual intercourse of favours with them; an inclination rather to countenance a strong use of authority, than to bear any fort of licentiousness on the part of the people; thefe are unfavourable qualities in an open election for Members of Parliament. The inftinct which carries the people towards the choice of the former, is juftified by reafon; becaufe because a man of such a character, even in its exorbitancies, does not directly contradict the purposes of a trust, the end of which is a controul on power. The latter character, even when it is not in its extreme, will execute this truft but very imperfectly; and, if deviating to the leaft excefs, will certainly fruftrate inftead of forwarding the purposes of a controul on Government. But when the Houfe of Commons was to be new modelled, this principle was not only to be changed but reverfed. Whilft any errours committed in support of power were left to the law, with every advantage of favourable construction, of mitigation, and finally of pardon; all exceffes on the fide of liberty, or in pursuit of popular favour, or in defence of popular rights and privileges, were not only to be punished by the rigour of the known law, but by a difcretionary proceeding which brought on the lofs of the popu lar object itself. Popularity was to be rendered, if not directly penal, at least highly dangerous, The favour of the people might lead even to a difqualification of reprefenting them. Their odium might become, ftrained through the medium of two or three conftructions, the means of fitting as the trustee of all that was dear to them, This is punishing the offence in the offending part. Until this time, the opinion of the people, through the power of an Affembly, ftill in fome fort popular, led to the greatest honours and emoluments in the gift of the Crown. Now the principle is reverfed; and the favour of the Court is the only fure way of obtaining and holding |