Of British treedom, on a rock divine Which neither force could storm nor treachery mine! Like mighty Babel, seem'd too bold for man; To thwart a work that raised men nearer heaven. Hence all the ills you suffer,--hence remain Such galling fragments of that feudal chain,3 croachments of the Commons subverted the fabric altogether; that the alternate ascendancy of prerogative and privilege distracted the period which followed the Restoration; and that, lastly, the Acts of 1688, by laying the foundation of an unbounded court-influence, have secured a preponderance to the Throne, which every succeeding year increases. So that the vaunted British constitution has never perhaps existed but in mere theory. "Those two thieves," says Ralph, "between whom the nation was crucified."-Use and Abuse of Parliament. 2 The monarchs of Great Britain can never be sufficiently grateful for that accommodating spirit which led the Revolutionary Whigs to give away the crown, without imposing any of those restraints or stipulations which other men might have taken advantage of so favourable a moment to enforce, and in the framing of which they had so good a model to follow as the limitations proposed by the Lords Essex and Halifax, in the debate upon the Exclusion Bill. They not only condescended, however, to accept of places, but took care that these dignities should be no impediment to their voice potential' in affairs of legislation; and although an Act was after many years suffered to pass, which by one of its articles disqualified placemen from serving as members of the House of Commons, it was yet not allowed to interfere with the influence of the reigning monarch, nor with that of his successor Anne. The purifying clause, indeed, was not to take effect till after the decease of the latter Sovereign, and she very considerately repealed it altogether. So that, as representation has continued ever since, if the king were simple enough to send to foreign courts ambassadors who were most of them in the pay of those courts, he would be just as honestly and faithfully represented as are his people. It would be endless to enumerate all the favours which were conferred upon William by those apostate Whigs.' They complimented him with the first suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act which had been hazarded since the confirmation of that privilege; and this example of our deliverer's reign has not been lost upon any of his successors. They promoted the establishment of a standing army, and circu lated in its defence the celebrated Balancing Letter,' in which it is insinuated that England, even then, in her boasted hour of regeneration, was arrived at such a pitch of faction and corruption that nothing could keep her in order but a Whig ministry and a standing army. They refused as long as they could, to shorten the duration of Parliaments; and though the Declaration of Rights acknowledged the necessity of such a reform, they were able, by arts not unknown to modern ministers, to brand those as traitors and republicans who urged it. But the grand and distinguishing trait of their measures was the power which they gave to the Crown of annihilating the freedom of elections, of muddying for ever that stream of representation which had, even in the most agitated times, reflected some features of the people, but which then for the first time became the Pactolus of the Court, and grew so darkened with sands of gold that it served for the people's mirror no longer. We need but consult the writings of that time to understand the astonishment then excited by measures which the practice of a century has rendered not only familiar, but necessary. See a pamphlet called The Danger of Mercenary Parliaments,' 1698; State Tracts,' Will. III. vol. ii. p. 638; and see also 'Some Paradoxes presented as a New Year's Gift.'-(State Poems, vol. iii. p. 327). 3 The last great wound given to the feudal system was the Act of the 12th of Charles II., which abolished the tenure of knight's service in capite, and which Blackstone compares, for its salutary influence upon property, to the boasted provisions of Magna Charta itself. Yet even in this Act we see the effects of that counteracting spirit which has contrived to weaken every effort of the English nation towards liberty. The exclusion of copyholders from their share of elective rights was permitted to remain as a brand of feudal servitude, and as an obstacle to the rise of that strong counterbalance which an equal representation of property would oppose to the weight of the Crown. If the managers of the Revolution had been sincere in their wishes for reform, they would not only have taken this fetter off the rights of election, but would have renewed the mode adopted in Cromwell's time, of in Whose links around you by the Norman flung, creasing the number of knights of the shire, to the exclusion of those rotten insignificant boroughs, which have tainted the whole mass of the constitution. Lord Clarendon calls this measure of Cromwell's 'an alteration fit to be more warrantable made, and in a better time.' It formed part of Mr. Pitt's plan in 1783; but Pitt's plan of reform was a kind of announced dramatic piece, about as likely to be ever acted as Mr. Sheridan's Foresters.' 1 fore enim tutum iter et patens Converso in pretium Deo. Aurum per medios ire satellites, &c.-Horat. It would be amusing to trace the history of Prerogative from the date of its strength under the Tudor princes, when Henry VII. and his successors taught the people (as Nathaniel Bacon says) to dance to the tune of Allegiance,' to the period of the Revolution, when the Throne, in its attacks upon liberty, began to exchange the noisy explosions of Prerogative for the silent and effectual air-gun of Influence. In following its course, too, since that memorable era, we shall find that, while the royal power has been abridged in branches where it might be made conducive to the interests of the people, it has been left in full and unshackled vigour against almost every point where the integrity of the constitution is vulnerable. For instance, the power of chartering boroughs, to whose capricious abuse in the hands of the Stuarts we are indebted for most of the present anomalies of representation, might, if suffered to remain, have in some degree atoned for its mischief, by restoring the old unchartered boroughs to their rights, and widening more equally the basis of the legislature. But, by the Act of Union with Scotland, this part of the prerogative was removed lest Freedom should have a chance of being healed, even by the rust of the spear which had formerly wounded her. The dangerous power, however, of creating peers, which has been so often exercised for the government against the constitution, is still left in free and unqualified activity, notwithstanding the example of that celebrated Bill for the limitation of this ever-bud, ding branch of prerogative, which was proposed in the reign of George I. under the peculiar sanction and recommendation of the Crown, but which the Whigs thought right to reject, with all that characteristic delicacy, which, in general, prevents them, when enjoying the sweets of office themselves, from taking any uncourtly advantage of the Throne. It will be recollected, however, that the creation of the twelve peers by the Tories in Anne's reign (a measure which Swift, like a true party man, defends) gave these upright Whigs all possible alarm for their liberties. With regard to this generous fit about his prerogative which seized so unroyally the good King George I., historians have hinted that the paroxysm originated far more in hatred to his son than in love to the constitution; but no loyal person, acquainted with the annals of the three Georges, could possibly suspect any one of those gracious monarchs either of ill-will to his heir, or indifference for the constitution. 2 They drove so fast (says Welwood of the ministers of Charles I.), that it was no wonder that the wheels and chariot broke.' (Memoirs, p. 35).-But this fatal accident, if we may judge from experience, is to be imputed far less to the folly and impetuosity of the drivers, than to the want of that suppling oil from the Treasury which has been found so necessary to make a government like that of England run smoothly. Had Charles been as well provided with this article as his successors have been since the happy Revolution, his Commons would never have merited from him the harsh appellation of 'seditious vipers,' but would have been (as they now are, and I trust always will be) dutiful Commons,' loyal Commons,' &c., &c., and would have given him ship-money, or any other sort of money he might take a fancy to. 3 During the reigns of Charles and James, 'No Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume Whom H-wks-b-y quotes and savoury B-rch admires, The people!-ah, that Freedom's form should stay Popery' was the watch-word of freedom, and served to keep the public spirit awake against the invasions of bigotry and prerogative. The Revolution, however, by removing this object of jealousy, has produced a reliance on the orthodoxy of the Throne, of which the Throne has not failed to take advantage; and the cry of No Popery' having thus lost its power of alarming the people against the inroads of the Crown, has served ever since the very different purpose of strengthening the Crown against the pretensions and struggles of the people. The danger of the Church from Papists and Pretenders was the chief pretext for the repeal of the Triennial Bill, for the adoption of a standing army, for the numerous suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act, and, in short, for all those spirited infractions of the constitution by which the reigns of the last century were so eminently distinguished. We have seen very lately, too, how the Throne has been enabled by the same scarecrow sort of alarm, to select its ministers from among men whose servility is their only claim to elevation, and who are pledged (if such an alternative could arise) to take part with the scruples of the King against the salvation of the empire. Somebody has said 'Quand tous les poètes seraient noyés, ce ne serait pas grand dommage;' but I am aware that this is not fit language to be held at a time when our birthday odes and state-papers are written by such pretty poets as Mr. Pe and Mr. C-nn-ng. All I wish is, that the latter gentleman would change places with his brother P-e, by which means we should have somewhat less prose in our odes, and certainly less poetry in our politics. 2It is a scandal (said Sir Charles Sedley, in William's reign) that a government so sick at heart as ours is should look so well in the face;' and Edmund Burke has said, in the present reign, 'When the people conceive that laws and tribunals, and even popular assemblies, are per verted from the ends of their institution, they fina in these names of degenerated establish. ments only new motives to discontent. Those bodies which, when full of life and beauty, lay in their arms and were their joy and comfort, when dead and putrid, become more loathsome from remembrance of former endearments.'-Thoughts on the Present Discontents, 1770. of 3 We are told by Tacitus of a certain race men, who made themselves particularly useful to the Roman emperors, and were therefore called, 'instrumenta regni,' or 'court-tools.' From this it appears, that my Lords M, C, &c., &, are by no means things of modern invention. Had dared to flow, in glory's radiant day, Oh, look around-though yet a tyrant's sword Of pension'd patriots and privileged slaves! Heavens, what a picture! yes, my friend, 'tis dark; Not bolder truths of sacred Freedom hung There is something very touching in what Tacitus tells us of the hopes that revived in a few patriot bosoms, when the death of Augustus was near approaching, and the fond expectation with which they already began 'bona libertatis incassum disserere.' Ferguson says that Cæsar's interference with the rights of election made the subversion of the republic more felt than any of the former acts of his power.'-Roman Republic, book v. chap. i. 2 Andrew Marvell, the honest opposer of the Court during the reign of Charles the Second, and the last member of parliament who, according to the ancient mode, took wages from his constituents. The Commons have, since then, much changed their paymasters.-See the State Poems for some rude but spirited effusions of Andrew Marvell, 3 The following artless speech of Sir Francis Winnington, in the reign of Charles the Second, will amuse those who are fully aware of the perfection we have since attained in that system of government whose humble beginnings so much astonished the worthy baronet. 'I did observe (says he) that all those who had pensions, and most of those who had offices, voted all of a side, as they were directed by some great officer, exactly as if their business in this House had been to preserve their pensions and offices, and not to make laws for the good of them who sent them here.' He alludes to that parliament which was called, par excellence, the Pensionary Parliament-a distinction, however, which it has long lost, and which we merely give it from old custoin, just as we say 'the Irish Rebellion.' But bees, on flowers alighting, cease their hum- Are Freedom's grave old anthems to my ear, See that smooth lord, whom nature's plastic pains Thus devils, when first raised, take pleasing shapes. Of slavery's draught was wanting3-if for this 1 According to Xenophon, the chief circumstance which recommended these creatures to the service of Eastern princes was the ignominious station they held in society, and the probability of their being, upon this account, more devoted to the will and caprice of a master, from whose notice alone they derived consideration, and in whose favour they might seek refuge from the general contempt of mankind. 2 And in the cup an Union shall be thrown.'Hamlet. 3 Among the many measures which, since the Revolution, have contributed to increase the influence of the throne, and to feed up this Aaron's serpent' of the constitution to its present health and respectable magnitude, there have been few more nutritive than the Scotch and Irish Unions. Sir John Packer said, in a debate upon the former question, that he would submit it to the House, whether men who had basely betrayed their trust, by giving up their independent constitution, were fit to be admitted into the English House of Commons,' But Sir John would have known, if he had not been out of place at the time, that the pliancy of such materials was not among the least of their recommendations. Indeed, the promoters of the Scotch Union were by no means disappointed in the leading object of their measure, for the triumphant majorities of the courtparty in parliament may be dated from the admission of the 45 and the 16. Once or twice, upon the alteration of their law of treason and the imposition of the malt-tax (measures which were in direct violation of the Act of Union), these worthy North Britons arrayed themselves in opposition to the Court; but finding this effort for their country unavailing, they prudently determined to think thenceforward of themselves, and few men have ever kept to a laudable resolution more firmly. The effect of Irish representation on the liberties of England will be no less perceptible and permanent. |