the one had been infulted, and the other enflaved, by that barbarous tyranny.-They would forget the natural oppofition of their views and inclinations, when they faw themselves threatened with the return of a domination, which was odious and intolerable to both a.

There

a The reader will have obferved, that in defcribing the British conftitution little notice has been taken of the house of lords.-The proper ufe and defign of this part of the conftitution are the following: Firit, to enable the King, by his right of bestowing the peerage, to reward the fervants of the public in a manner most grateful to them, and at a small expence to the nation; secondly, to fortify the power and to fecure the flability of regal government, by an order of men naturally allied to its interefts; and, thirdly, to answer a purpose, which though of fuperior importance to the other two, does not occur fo readily to our chservation; namely, to stem the progress of popular fury.-Large bodies of men are fubject to fudden phrenfies.-Opinions are fometimes circulated amongst a multitude without proof or examination, acquiring confidence and reputation merely by being repeated from one to another; and passions founded upon thefe opinions diffusing themselves with a rapidity which can neither be accounted for nor refifted, may agitate a country with the most violent commotions. -Now the only way to stop the fermentation is to divide the mafs; that is to erect different orders in the community, with feparate prejudices and interefts.—And this may occafionally become the use of an hereditary nobility, invested with a share of legislation.—Averse to those prejudices which aƐtuate the minds of the vulgar; accustomed to condemn the clamour of the populace; difdaining to receive laws and opinions from their inferiors in rank, they will oppofe refolutions which are founded in the folly and violence of the lower part of the community.-Was the voice of the people always dictated by reflection; did every man, or even one man in a hundred, think for himself, or actually confider the measure he was about to approve or cenfure; or even were the common people tolerably fleadfaft in the judgment which they formed, I fhould hold the interference of a superior order, not only superfluous, but wrong: for, when every thing is allowed to difference of rank and education, which the

actual

There is nothing, in the British conftitution, fo remarkable, as the irregularity of the POPULAR REPRESENTATION.-The house of commons consists of five huñdred and forty-eight members, of whom two hundred are elected by seven thousand conflituents: so that a majority

actual state of these advantages deferves, that, after all, is most likely to be right and expedient, which appears to be so to the separate judgment and decifion of a great majority of the nation; at least, that, in general, is right for them, which is agreeable to their fixed opinions and defires.-But when we obferve what is urged as the public opinion, to be, in truth, the opinion only, or perhaps the feigned professions of a few crafty leaders; that the numbers who join in the cry, serve only to swell and multiply the found, without any accefsion of judgment, or exercise of understanding; and that oftentimes the wifeft councils have been thus overborne by tumult and uproar,-we may conceive occafions to arife, in which the commonwealth may be faved by the reluctance of the nobility to adopt the caprices, or to yield to the vehemence of the common people.-In expecting this advantage from an order of nobles, we do not fuppofe the nobility to be more unprejudiced than others; we only fuppofe that their prejudices will be different from, and may occafionally counteralt, thofe of others.

The admission of a small number of ecclefiaftics into the house of lords is but an equitable compenfation to the clergy for the exclufion of their order from the houfe of commons.-They are a fet of men confiderable by their number and property, as well as by their influence, and the duties of their station; yet, whilst every other profeffion has those amongst the national reprefentatives, who, being converfant in the fame occupation, are able to ftate, and naturally disposed to support, the rights and interests of the clafs to which they belong, the clergy alone are deprived of this advantage.-Which hardship is made up to them by introducing the prelacy into parliament; and if bishops, from gratitude or expectation, be more obfequious to the will of the crown, than those who poffefs great temporal inheritances, they are properly inferted into that part of the conftitution, from which much or frequent refiftance to the measures of government is not expected.

of

of these seven thousand, without any reasonable title to fuperior weight or influence in the state, may, under certain circumstances, decide a question against the opinion of as many millions.-Or, to place the fame object in another point of view; if my estate be fituated in one county of the kingdom, I poffefs the ten thoufandth part of a fingle reprefentative; if in another, the thoufandth; if in a particular diftrict, I may be one in twenty who choose two representatives; if in a still more favoured fpot, I may enjoy the right of appointing two myself.—If I have been born, or dwell, or have served an apprenticeship in one town, I am represented in the national affembly by two deputies, in the choice of whom I exercise an actual and fenfible share of power; if accident has thrown my birth, or habitation, or fervice, into another town, I have no representative at all, nor more power or concern in the election of those who make the laws, by which I am governed, than if I was a fubject of the Grand Signior-and this partiality fubfifts without any pretence whatever of merit or of propriety, to justify the preference of one place to another. Or, thirdly, to describe the state of national representation as it exifts in reality, it may be affirmed, I believe, with truth, that about one half of the house

of commons obtain their feats in that affembly by the election of the people, the other half by purchase, or by the nomination of fingle proprietors of great eftates.

This is a flagrant incongruity in the constitution; but it is one of those objections which strike most forcibly at firft.-The effect of all reafoning upon the subject will diminish the first impreffion: on which account it deferves the more attentive examination, that we may be affured, before we adventure upon a reformation, that the MAGNITUDE OF THE EVIL JUSTIFIES THE DAN

GER OF THE EXPERIMENT.

In the few remarks that follow, we would be underftood, in the first place, to decline all conference with those who wish to alter the form of government of thefe kingdoms.-The reformers with whom we have to do, are they, who, while they change this part of the fyftem, would retain the reft.-If any Englishman expect more happiness to his country under a republic, he may very confiftently recommend a new modelling of elections to parliament; because, if the king and house of lords were laid afide, the prefent difproportionate reprefentation would produce nothing but a confused and illdigefted oligarchy.-In like manner we wave a contro

verfy with those writers who infift upon reprefentation as a natural right: we confider it so far only as a right at all, as it conduces to PUBLIC UTILITY; that is, as it contributes to the establishment of good laws, or as it fecures to the people the just administration of thefe laws.-Thefe effects depend upon the difpofition and abilities of the national counsellors.—Wherefore, if men the most likely by their qualifications to know and to promote the public interest be actually returned to parliament, it fignifies little who return them.-If the propereft perfons be elected, what matters it by whom they are elected?—At least, no prudent fiatefman would fubvert long established or even fettled rules of reprefentation, without a prospect of procuring wifer or better reprefentatives.

This then being well obferved, let us, before we feek to obtain any thing more, confider duly what we already have.-We have a houfe of commons compofed of five hundred and forty-eight members, in which number are found the moft CONSIDERABLE LANDHOLDERS

a If this right be natural, no doubt it must be equal, and the right, we may add, of one fex, as well as of the other. Whereas every plan of reptesentation we have heard of begins by excluding the votes of women: thus cutting off, at a fingle ftroke, one half of the public from a right which is afferted to be inherent in all; a right too, as fome reprefent it, not only univerfal, but unalienable and indefeasible.

and