ters, fo lòng as his confinement is the effect of a beneficial public law, his civil liberty is not invaded. If this inftance appear dubious, the following will be plainer. A paffenger from the Levant, who, upon his return to England, fhould be conveyed to a lazaretto by an order of quarantine, with whatever impatience he might defire his enlargement, and though he faw a guard placed at the door to oppofe his escape, or even ready to deftroy his life if he attempted it, would hardly accufe government of incroaching upon his civil freedom; nay, might, perhaps, be all the while congratulating himself that he had at length fet his foot again in a land of liberty. The manifeft expediency of the measure not only juftifies it, but reconciles the most odious confinement with the perfect poffeffion, and the loftieft notions of civil liberty. And if this be true of the coercion of a prifon, that it is compatible with a state of civil freedom; it cannot with reafon be difputed of thofe more moderate conftraints which the ordinary operation of government impofes upon the will of the individual. It is not the rigour, but the inexpediency of laws and acts of authority, which makes them tyrannical.

There is another idea of civil liberty, which, though

M 4

though neither fo fimple nor fo accurate as the former, agrees better with the fignification, which the ufage of common difcourfe, as well as the example of many refpectable writers upon the fubject, has affixed to the term. This idea places liberty in fecurity; making it to confift not merely in an actual exemption from the constraint of ufelefs and noxious laws and acts of dominion, but in being free from the danger of having any fuch hereafter impofed or exercifed. Thus, fpeaking of the political state of modern Europe, we are accuftomed to fay of Sweden, that the hath loft her liberty by the revolution which lately took place in that country; and yet we are affured that the people continue to be governed by the fame laws as before, or by others which are wifer, milder, and more equitable. What then have they loft? They have loft the power and functions of their diet; the conftitution of their ftates and orders, whofe deliberations and concurrence were required in the formation and establishment of every public law; and thereby have parted with the fecurity which they poffeffed against any attempts of the crown to harass its fubjects, by oppreffive and ufelefs exertions of prerogative. The lofs of this fecurity we denominate the lofs of liberty.

They

They have changed not their laws, but their legiflature; not their enjoyment, but their safety; not their present burthens, but their prospects of future grievances: and this we pronounce a change from the condition of freemen to that of flaves. In like manner, in our own country, the act of parliament, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which gave to the king's proclamation the force of law, has properly been called a complete and formal furrender of the liberty of the nation; and would have been fo, although no proclamation were iffued in pursuance of these new powers, or none but what was recommended by the higheft wifdom and utility. The fecurity was gone. Were it probable that the welfare and accommodation of the people would be as ftudioufly, and as providently, confulted in the edicts of a defpotic prince, as by the refolutions of a popular affembly, then would an abfolute form of government be no lefs free than the pureft democracy. The different degree of care and knowledge of the public intereft which may reasonably be expected from the different form and compofition of the legiflature, conftitutes the diftinction, in respect of -liberty, as well between thefe two extremes, as

between

between all the intermediate modifications of

civil government.

The definitions which have been framed of civil liberty, and which have become the fubject of much unneceffary altercation, are most of them adapted to this idea. Thus one political writer makes the very effence of the subject's liberty to confift in his being governed by no laws but those to which he hath actually confented; another is fatisfied with an indirect and virtual confent; another again places civil liberty in the feparation of the legislative and executive offices of government; another in the being governed by law, that is, by known, preconftituted, inflexible rules of action and adjudication ; a fifth in the exclufive right of the people to tax themselves by their own reprefentatives; a fixth in the freedom and purity of elections of reprefentatives; a feventh in the control which the democratic part of the conftitution poffeffes over the military establishment. Concerning which, and fome other fimilar accounts of civil liberty, it may be obferved, that they all labour under one inaccuracy, viz. that they defcribe not fo much liberty itself as the fafeguards and prefervatives of liberty: for ex

ample,

ample, a man's being governed by no laws, but thofe to which he has given his confent, were it practicable, is no otherwife neceffary to the enjoyment of civil liberty, than as it affords a probable fecurity against the dictation of laws, impofing fuperfluous reftrictions upon his pri-, vate will. This remark is applicable to the reft. The diverfity of thefe definitions will not furprife us, when we confider that there is no contrariety or oppofition amongst them whatever; for, by how many different provifions and precautions civil liberty is fenced and protected, fo many different accounts of liberty itself, all sufficiently confiftent with truth and with each other, may, according to this mode of explaining the term, be framed and adopted.

Truth cannot be offended by a definition, but propriety may. In which view thofe definitions of liberty ought to be rejected, which, by making that effential to civil freedom which is unattainable in experience, inflame expectations that can never be gratified, and difturb the public content with complaints, which no wifdom or benevolence of government can remove.

It will not be thought extraordinary, that an idea, which occurs fo much oftener as the subject of panegyric and carelefs declamation, than of

juft