means to oblige those persons to whom the people have given up their power, to make them effectual and lasting returns of gratitude? -those who enjoy an exclusive authority, to seek the advantage of all?-those who make the laws, to make only equitable ones ?--It has been by subjecting themselves to those laws, and for that purpose excluding them from all share in the execution of them.

Thus, the parliament can establish as numerous a standing army as it will; but immediately another power comes forward, which takes the absolute command of it, fills all the posts in it, and directs its motion at its pleasure. The parliament may lay new taxes; but immediately another power seizes the produce of them, and alone enjoys the advantages and glory arising from the disposal of it. The parliament may even, if you please, repeal the laws on which the safety of the subject is grounded; but it is not their own caprices and arbitrary humours, it is the caprices and passions of other men, which they will have gratified, when they shall thus have overthrown the columns of public liberty.

And the English constitution has not only excluded from any share in the execution of the laws, those in whom the people trust for

the enacting them, but it has also taken from them what would have had the same pernicious influence on their deliberations-the hope of ever invading that executive authority, and transferring it to themselves.

This authority has been made in England one single, indivisible prerogative; it has been made for ever the inalienable attribute of one person, marked out and ascertained beforehand by solemn laws and long established custom; and all the active forces in the state have been left at his disposal.

In order to secure this prerogative still farther against all possibility of invasions from individuals, it has been heightened and strengthened by every thing that can attract and fix the attention and reverence of the

people. The power of conferring and withdrawing places and employments has also been added to it and ambition itself has thus been interested in its defence and service.

A share in the legislative power has also been given to the man to whom this prerogative has been delegated; a passive share indeed, and the only one that can, with safety to the state, be trusted to him, but by means of which he is enabled to defeat every attempt against his constitutional authority.

hope that they shall at some future time share in the exercise of them, but also by the whole crowd of those men who, in consequence of the natural disposition of mankind to over-rate their own advantages, fondly imagine, either that they shall one day enjoy some branch of this governing authority, or that they are even already, in some way or other, associated to it.

But as this authority has been made, in England, the indivisible, inalienable attribute of one alone, all other persons in the state are, ipso facto, interested to confine it within its due bounds. Liberty is thus made the common cause of all; the laws that secure it are supported by men of every rank and order; and the Habeas Corpus Act, for instance, is as zealously defended by the first nobleman in the kingdom as by the meanest subject.

Even the minister himself, in consequence of this inalienability of the executive authority, is equally interested with his fellow-citizens to maintain the laws on which public liberty is founded. He knows, in the midst of his schemes for enjoying or retaining his authority, that a court intrigue or a caprice may at every instant confound him with the multitude, and the rancour of a successor, long kept out, send

him to linger in the same prison which his temporary passions might tempt him to prepare for others.

In consequence of this disposition of things, great men are made to join in a common cause with the people, for restraining the excesses of the governing power; and, which is no less essential to the public welfare, they are also, from the same cause, compelled to restrain the excess of their own private power and influence; and a general spirit of justice becomes thus diffused through all parts of the state.

The wealthy commoner, the representative of the people, the potent peer, always having before their eyes the view of a formidable power,-of a power, from the attempts of which they have only the shield of the laws to protect them, and which would, in the issue, retaliate a hundred fold upon them their acts of violence,—are compelled, both to wish only for equitable laws, and to observe them with scrupulous exactness.

Let then the people dread (it is necessary to the preservation of their liberty), but let them never entirely cease to love, the throne, that sole and indivisible seat of all the active powers in the state.

Let them know it is that, which, by lending

hope that they shall at some future time share in the exercise of them,-but also by the whole crowd of those men who, in consequence of the natural disposition of mankind to over-rate their own advantages, fondly imagine, either that they shall one day enjoy some branch of this governing authority, or that they are even already, in some way or other, associated to it.

But as this authority has been made, in England, the indivisible, inalienable attribute of one alone, all other persons in the state are, ipso facto, interested to confine it within its due bounds. Liberty is thus made the common cause of all; the laws that secure it are supported by men of every rank and order; and the Habeas Corpus Act, for instance, is as zealously defended by the first nobleman in the kingdom as by the meanest subject.

Even the minister himself, in consequence of this inalienability of the executive authority, is equally interested with his fellow-citizens to maintain the laws on which public liberty is founded. He knows, in the midst of his schemes for enjoying or retaining his authority, that a court intrigue or a caprice may at every instant confound him with the multitude, and the rancour of a successor, long kept out, send