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 House 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 purposes it is meant to answer in the conftitution.

The House of Commons was fuppofed originally to be no part of the ftanding Government of this country. It was confidered as a controul, iffuing immediately from the people, and speedily to be refolved into the mafs 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 course preponderate in all difcuffions, not only between the people and the ftanding authority of the Crown, but between the people and the fleeting authority of the House of Commons itself. It was hoped that, being of a middle nature between fubject and Government, they would feel with a more tender and a nearer

intereft

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

Whatever alterations time and the neceffary accommodation of bufinefs may have introduced, this character can never be fuftained, unless the Houfe of Commons fhall be made to bear some stamp 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 should 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 fhould in all cafes be wholly untouched by the opinions and feelings of the people out of doors. By this want of fympathy they would ceafe to be an House of Commons. For it is not the derivation of the power of that Houfe from the people, which makes it in a diftinct fense their reprefentative. The King is the reprefentative of the people; fo are the Lords; fc are the Judges. They all are trustees for the people, as well as the Commons; becaufe no power is given for the fole fake of the holder; and although Government certainly is an inftitution of Divine authority, yet its forms, and the perfons who adminifter it, all originate from the people.

A popular origin cannot therefore be the characteristical diftinction of a popular representative. 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 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 fupport 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: these seem 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 utmoft harmony with Minifters, whom the people regard with the utmost 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 against the people; who punish their disorders, but refuse even to enquire into the provocations to them; this is an unnatural, a monftrous ftate of things in this conftitution. 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 greateft 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 wifdom, and is of lefs confequence) and the corruption of the principle itfelf. For then the evil is not accidental, but fettled. The diftemper 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 symptoms: firft, a rule of indifcriminate fupport to all Minifters; because this destroys 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 useful powers of Government have been weakened. It is abfolutely neceffary to have frequent recourse to the Legislature. Parliaments muft therefore fit every year, and for great part of the year. The dreadful diforders of frequent elections have also neceffitated

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neceffitated a feptennial inftead of a triennial duration. Thefe 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 diforders; 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 Houfe of Commons religiously true to its firft principles, I would not argue for carrying it to a total oblivion of them. This has been the great fcheme 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 shattered and old-fashioned fortrefs of prerogative, and made a lodgement in the ftrong hold of Parliament itself. If they have any evil defign to which there is no ordinary legal power commenfurate, they bring it into Parliament. In Parliament the whole is executed from the be

ginning 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 cannot

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