reality pave the way to its ruin (c). The crown, on the other hand, may, by the acquisition of foreign dominions, acquire a fatal independency on the people.

The English government will be no more, either when 498 the crown shall become independent of the nation for its supplies, or when the representatives of the people shall begin to share in the executive authority (d).

(c) Instead of looking for the principles of politics in their true sources, that is to say, in the nature of the affections of mankind, and of those sacred ties by which they are united in a state of society, men have treated that science in the same manner as they did natural philosophy in the time of Aristotle, continually recurring to occult causes and principles, from which no useful consequence could be drawn. Thus, in order to ground particular assertions, they have much used the word constitution in a personal sense; the constitution loves, the constitution forbids, and the like. At other times they have had recourse to luxury, in order to explain certain events; and, at others, to a still more occult cause, which they have called corruption; and abundance of comparisons drawn from the human body have been also used for the same purposes. (See Volney's Ruins.- EDITOR). Continued instances of such defective arguments and considerations occur in the works of M. de Montesquieu, though a man of so much genius, and from whose writings so much information is nevertheless to be derived. Nor is it only the obscurity of the writings of politicians, and the impossibility of applying their speculative doctrines to practical uses, which prove that some peculiar and uncommon difficulties lie in the way of the investigation of political truths; but the remarkable perplexity which men, in general, even the ablest, labour under, when they attempt to descant and argue upon abstract questions in politics, also justifies this observation, and proves that the true first principles of this science, whatever they are, lie deep both in the human feelings and understanding.

(d) And if at any time dangerous changes were to take place in the English constitution, the pernicious tendency of which the people were not able at first to discover, restrictions on the liberty of the press, and on the power of juries, will give them the first information.

CHAPTER XIV.

On the Attempts that at particular Times may be made to abridge the Power of the Crown, and the Dangers by which they may be attended.

Ir has already been observed that the power of the crown is supported by deeper and more numerous roots 499 than the generality of people are aware of; and there is no cause to fear that the wresting any capital branch of its prerogative may be effected, in common peaceable times, by the mere theoretical speculations of politicians. However, it is not equally impracticable that some event of the kind may be brought about through a conjunction of several circumstances. Advantage may, in the first place, be taken of the minority, and even of the inexperience or the errors of the person invested with the kingly authority. Of this a remarkable instance happened in the reign of George I., while that bill, by which the order of peers was in future to be limited to a certain number, was under consideration in the House of Commons, to whom it had been sent by the Lords. So unacquainted was the king at that time with his own interest, and with the constitution of the government over which he was come to preside, that, having been persuaded by that party who wished success to the bill, that the objection made against it by the

House of Commons, was only owing to an opinion they entertained of the bill being disagreeable to him, he 500 was prevailed upon to send a message to them, to let them know that such an opinion was ill-grounded, and that, should the bill pass in their house, it would meet with his assent. Considering the prodigious importance of the consequences of such a bill, the fact is certainly very remarkable (a).

When this bill was in agitation, its great constitutional consequences were scarcely attended to by any body. The king himself certainly saw no harm in it, since he sent an open message to promote the passing of it: a measure which was not, perhaps, strictly regular. The bill was, it appears, generally approved out of doors. Its fate was for a long time doubtful in the House of Commons; nor did they acquire any favour with the bulk of the people by finally rejecting it. Yet no bill of greater constitutional importance was ever agitated in parliament; since the consequences of its being passed would have been the freeing the House of Lords, both in their judicial and legislative capacities, from all constitutional check whatever, either from the crown or the nation. Nay, it is not to be doubted, that they would have acquired, in time, the right of electing their own members: though it would be useless to point out here by what series of intermediate events the measure might have been brought about. Whether there existed any actual project of this kind among the first framers of the bill, does not appear; but a certain number of the members of the house we

(a) See B. 2, C. 12, p. 387

mention would have thought of it soon enough, if the bill in question had been enacted into a law; and they would certainly have met with success, had they been contented to wait, and had they taken time. Other equally important changes in the substance, and perhaps the outward form, of the government would have followed.

With those personal disadvantages under which the sovereign may lie for defending his authority, other causes of difficulty may concur,-such as popular discontents of long continuance in regard to certain particular abuses of influence or authority. The generality of the public, bent, at that time, both upon remedying the abuses complained of, and preventing the like from taking place in future, will perhaps wish to see that branch of the prerogative which gave rise to them taken from the crown: a general disposition to applaud such a measure, if effected, will be manifested from all quarters; and at the same time men may not be aware, that the only material consequence that may arise from 501 depriving the crown of that branch of power which has caused the public complaints, will perhaps be the having transferred that branch of power from its former seat to another, and having entrusted it to new hands. which will be still more likely to abuse it than those in which it was formerly lodged.

In general, it may be laid down as a maxim, that power under any form of government must exist, and be entrusted somewhere. If the constitution does not admit of a king, the governing authority is lodged in the hands of magistrates. If the government, at the same time that it is a limited one, bears a monarchial form, those portions of power that are retrenched from

the king's prerogative will most probably continue to subsist, and be vested in a senate or assembly of great men, under some other name of the like kind.

The king has an exclusive power in regard to foreign 502 affairs, war, peace, treaties;-in all that relates to military affairs, he has the disposal of the existing army, of the fleet, &c. He may, at all times, deprive 504 the ministers of their employments. And he has the power of dissolving, or keeping assembled, his parlia

ment.

Those persons who think that the prerogative of a king cannot be too much abridged, and that power loses all its influence on the dispositions and views of those who possess it, according to the kind of name used to express the offices by which it is conferred, may be satisfied, no doubt, to behold those branches of power that were taken from a king distributed to several bodies, and shared by the representatives of the people; but those who think that power, when parcelled and diffused, is never so well repressed and regulated as when it is confined to a sole indivisible seat, which keeps the 505 nation united and awake,-those who know that, names by no means altering the intrinsic nature of things, the representatives of the people, as soon as they are invested with independent authority, become, ipso facto, its masters, those persons, will not think it a very happy regulation in the former constitution of Sweden to have deprived the king of prerogatives formerly attached to his office, in order to vest the same either in a senate, or in the deputies of the people, and thus to have entrusted with a share in the exercise of the public power those very men whose constitutional office should have been to watch and restrain it.