fame effect; for the appointment of the repres fentatives we find commonly annexed to cer→ tain great inheritances. Elections purely popular are in this refpect uncertain: in times of tranquillity, the natural afcendancy of wealth will prevail; but when the minds of men are enflamed by political diffentions, this influence often yields to more impetuous motives.-The variety of tenures and qualifications, upon which the right of voting is founded, appears to me a recommendation of the mode which now fubfifts, as it tends to introduce into parliament a correfponding mixture of characters and profeffions. It has been long obferved that confpicuous abilities are moft frequently found with the reprefentatives of fmall boroughs. And this is nothing more than what the laws of human conduct might teach us to expect: when fuch boroughs are fet to fale, thofe men are likely to become purchafers who are enabled by their talents to make the beft of their bargain: when a feat is not fold, but given by the opulent proprietor of a burgage tenure, the patron finds his own intereft confuled, by the reputation and abilities of the member whom he nominates. If certain of the nobility hold the appointment of fome part of the house of commons, it ferves

to

to maintain that alliance between the two branches of the legislature, which no good citizen would wish to fee diffevered: it helps to keep the government of the country in the house of commons, in which it would not perhaps long continue to refide, if fo powerful and wealthy a part of the nation as the peerage compofe, were excluded from all fhare and interest in its conftitution. If there be a few boroughs fo circumftanced as to lie at the difpofal of the crown, whilft the number of fuch is known and small, they may be tolerated with little danger. For where would be the impropriety, or the inconveniency, if the king at once fhould nominate a limited number of his fervants to feats in parliament; or, what is the fame thing, if feats in parliament were annexed to the poffeffion of certain of the moft efficient and refponfible offices in the ftate? The prefent representation, after all thefe deductions, and under the confufion in which it confeffedly lies, is ftill in fuch a degree popular, or rather the representatives are fo connected with the mass of the community by a feciety of interefts and paffions, that the will of the people, when it is determined, permanent, and general, almost always at length prevails.

Upon

Upon the whole, in the feveral plans which have been fuggefted, of an equal or a reformed representation, it will be difficult to discover any propofal that has a tendency to throw more of the business of the nation into the house of commons, or to collect a fet of men more fit to tranfact that bufinefs, or in general more interested in the national happiness and profperity. One confequence, however, may be expected from these projects, namely, "lefs flexibility to

the influence of the crown.' And fince the diminution of this influence is the declared, and perhaps the fole defign of the various fchemes that have been produced, whether for regulating the elections, contracting the duration, or for purifying the conftitution of parliament by the exclufion of placemen and penfioners; it is obvious to remark, that the more apt and natural, as well as the more fafe and quiet way of attaining the fame end, would be, by a direct reduction of the patronage of the crown, which might be effected to a certain extent without hazarding farther confequences. Superfluous and exorbitant emoluments of office may not only be fuppreffed for the prefent; but provifions of law be devifed, which should for the future reftrain within certain limits the

number and value of the offices in the donation of the king.

But whilft we difpute concerning different fchemes of reformation, all directed to the fame end, a previous doubt occurs in the debate, whether the end itfelf be good, or fafe-whether the influence fo loudly complained of can be destroyed, or even much diminished, without danger to the state. Whilft the zeal of fome men beholds this influence with a jealousy, which nothing but its entire abolition can appease, many wife and virtuous politicians deem a confiderable portion of it to be as necessary a part of the British conftitution, as any other ingredient in the compofition-to be that, indeed, which gives cohesion and folidity to the whole. Were the measures of government, fay they, opposed from nothing but principle, government ought to have nothing but the rectitude of its measures to fupport them; but fince opposition springs from other motives, government must possess an influence to counteract thefe motives; to produce, not a bias of the paffions, but a neutrality it must have fome weight to caft into the fcale, to fet the balance even, It is the nature of power always to prefs upon the boundaries. which confine it." Licentioufnefs, faction, envy,

VOL. II.

impa

impatience of control or inferiority; the fecret pleasure of mortifying the great, or the hope of difpoffeffing them; a conftant willingness to queftion and thwart whatever is dictated or even propofed by another; a difpofition common to all bodies of men to extend the claims and authority of their orders; above all, that love of power, and of fhewing it, which refides more or lefs in every human breaft, and which, in popular affemblies, is inflamed, like every other paffion, by communication and encouragement: thefe motives, added to private defigns and refentments, cherished alfo by popular acclamation, and operating upon the great share of power already poffeffed by the house of commons, might induce a majority, or at least a large party of men in that affembly, to unite in endeavouring to draw to themselves the whole government of the ftate; or at least so to obftruct the conduct of public affairs, by a wanton and perverse oppofition, as to render it impoffible for the wifest statesmen to carry forwards the business of the nation with fuccefs or fatisfaction.

Some paffages of our national history afford grounds for thefe apprehenfions. Before the acceffion of James the First, or, at least, during the reigns of his three immediate predeceffors,

the