But, above all, by forming our govern'ment with a small number of persons, we 'shall prevent any disorder that may take place in it from ever becoming dangerously < extensive. Nay more, we shall render it capable of such inestimable combinations and resources, as would be utterly impossible in 'the government of all, which never can be any thing but uproar and confusion.

In short, by expressly divesting ourselves of a power, of which we should, at best, have only an apparent enjoyment, we shall 'be entitled to make conditions for ourselves: we will insist that our liberty be augmented;

we will, above all, reserve to ourselves the Wright of watching and censuring that admi nistration which will have been established by our own consent. We shall the better.

see its faults, because we shall be only spec'tators of it: we shall correct them the better, because we shall not have personally concurred in its operations.'*

* He might have added,-" As we will not seek to "counteract nature, but rather to follow it, we shall be "able to procure ourselves a mild legislation. Let us "not be without cause afraid of the power of one man; "we shall have no need either of a Tarpeian rock, or of "a Council of ten. Having expressly allowed to the

The English constitution being founded upon such principles as those we have just described, no true comparison can be made between it and the government of any other state; and since it evidently secures, not only the liberty, but the general satisfaction in all respects, of those who are subject to it, in a much greater degree than any other government ever did, this consideration alone affords sufficient ground to conclude, without looking farther, that it is also more likely to be preserved from ruin.

And indeed we may observe the remarkable manner in which it has been maintained in the midst of such general commotions as seemed to lead to its unavoidable destruction. It rose again, we see, after the wars between Henry the Third and his barons,-after the usurpation of Henry the Fourth,-and after the long and bloody contentions between the houses of York and Lancaster. Nay, though totally destroyed in appearance after the fall of Charles the First, and though the greatest efforts had been made to establish another form of government in its stead, yet no sooner

"people a liberty to inquire into the conduct of govern"ment, and to endeavour to correct it, we shall need "neither state-prisons, nor secret informers."

was Charles the Second called over, than the constitution was re-established upon all its ancient foundations..

However, as what has not happened at one time may happen at another, future revolutions (events which no form of government can totally prevent) may perhaps end in a different manner from that in which past ones have terminated. New combinations may possibly take place among the then ruling powers of the state, of such a nature as to prevent the constitution, when peace shall be restored to the nation, from settling again upon its ancient and genuine foundations; and it would certainly be a very bold assertion. to affirm, that both the outward form, and the true spirit of the English government, would again be preserved from destruction, if the same dangers to which they have in former times been exposed should again happen to take place.

Nay, such fatal changes as those we mention may be introduced even in quiet times, or, at least, by means in appearance peaceable and constitutional. Advantages, for instance, may be taken by particular factions, either of the feeble capacity, or of the misconduct of some future king. Temporary prepossessions

of the people may be so artfully managed as to make them concur in doing what will prove afterwards the ruin of their own liberty. Plans of apparent improvement in the constitution, forwarded by men who, though with good intentions, shall proceed without a due knowledge of the true principles and foundations of government, may produce effects quite contrary to those which were intended, and in reality pave the way to its ruin.* The crown, on

* 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 times 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: 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

the other hand, may, by the acquisition of foreign dominions, acquire a fatal independency on the people and if, without entering into any farther particulars on this subject, I were required to point out the principal events which would, if they were ever to happen, prove immediately the ruin of the English government, I would say,-The English government will be no more, either when the crown shall become independent on the nation for its supplies, or when the representatives of the people shall begin to share in the executive authority.*

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.

*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.