212 it be long before they were so), his obstinate resolution to move out of the ordinary course of things would indicate aims, on his part, of such an extraordinary nature, that all men whatever, who have any regard for their country, would instantly rise up from all parts to oppose him, and he must fall overwhelmed with so much ridicule, that it would be better for him to fall from the Tarpeian rock (e).

In fine, even though we were to suppose that the new lord might, after his exaltation, have preserved all his interest with the people, or, what would be no less difficult, that any lord whatever could, by dint of his wealth and high birth, rival the splendour of the crown itself, all these advantages, how great soever we may 213 suppose them, as they would not of themselves be able to confer on him the least executive authority, must for ever remain mere showy unsubstantial advantages. Finding all the active powers of the state concentred in that very seat of power which we suppose him inclined to attack, and there secured by formidable provisions, his influence must always evaporate in ineffectual words; and after having advanced himself, as we sup

(e) The reader will, perhaps, object, that no man in England can entertain such views as those I have suggested here: this is precisely what I intended to prove. The essential advantage of the English government above all those that have been called free, and which in many respects were but apparently so, is, that no person in England can entertain so much as a thought of ever rising to the level of the power charged with the execution of the laws. All men in the state, whatever may be their rank, wealth, or influence, are thoroughly convinced that they must, in reality as well as in name, continue to be subjects; and are thus compelled really to love, defend, and promote, those laws which secure liberty to the subject. This latter observation will be again introduced in the sequel.

pose, to the very foot of the throne, finding no branch of independent power which he might so far appropriate to himself, as at last to give a reality to a political importance, he would soon see it, however great it might have at first appeared, decline and die away.

God forbid, however, that I should mean that the people of England are so fatally tied down to inaction, by the nature of their government, that they cannot, in times of oppression, find means of appointing a leader! No; I only meant to say, that the laws of England open no door to those accumulations of power, which have been the ruin of so many republics; that they offer to the ambitious no possible means of taking advantage of the inadvertence or even the gratitude of the people, to make themselves their tyrants; and that the public power, of which the king has been made the exclusive 214 depository, must remain unshaken in his hands, so long as things continue to keep in the legal order; which, it may be observed, is a strong inducement to him constantly to endeavour to maintain them in it (ƒ).

(f) Several events, in the English history, put in a very strong light this idea of the stability which the power of the crown gives to the state.

One is, the facility with which the great Duke of Marlborough, and his party at home, were removed from their employments. Hannibal, in circumstances nearly similar, had continued war against the will of the senate of Carthage: Cæsar had done the same in Gaul: and when, at last, he was expressly required to deliver up his commission, he marched his army to Rome, and established a military despotism. But the Duke of Marlborough, though surrounded, as well as the above-named generals, by a victorious army, and by allies, in conjunction with whom he had carried on such a successful war, did not even hesitate to surrender his commission. He knew that all his soldiers were inflexibly prepossessed in favour of that power against which he must have revolted; he knew that the same pre

"possessions were deeply rooted in the minds of the whole nation, and that every thing among them concurred to support the same power; he knew that the very nature of the claims he must have set up would instantly have made all his officers and captains turn themselves against him; and, in short, that, in an enterprise of this nature, the arm of the sea he had to repass was the smallest of the obstacles he would have to encounter.

The other event I shall mention here, is that of the revolution of 1689. If the long-established power of the crown had not beforehand prevented the people from accustoming themselves to fix their eyes on some particular citizens, and in general had not prevented all men in the state from attaining too considerable a degree of power and greatness, the expulsion of James II. might have been followed by events similar to those which took place at Rome after the death of Cæsar.

CHAPTER II.

The Executive Power is more easily confined when it is

One.

ANOTHER great advantage, and which one would not at 215 first expect, in this unity of the public power in England,—in this union, and, if I may so express myself, in this coacervation, of all the branches of the executive authority, is the greater facility it affords of restraining it.

In those states where the execution of the laws is intrusted to several hands, and to each with different titles and prerogatives, such division, and the changeableness of measures which must be the consequence of it, constantly hide the true cause of the evils of the state in the endless fluctuation of things, no political principles have time to fix among the people; and public misfortunes happen, without ever leaving behind them 216 any useful lesson.

At some times military tribunes, and at others consuls, bear an absolute sway; sometimes patricians usurp every thing, and at other times those who are called nobles (a); at one time the people are oppressed by decemvirs, and at another by dictators.

(a) The capacity of the Romans being admitted to all places of public trust (at length gained by the plebeians) having rendered use

Tyranny, in such states, does not always beat down the fences that are set around it; but it leaps over them. When men think it confined to one place, it starts up again in another;-it mocks the efforts of the people, not because it is invincible, but because it is unknown ;-seized by the arm of a Hercules, it escapes with the changes of a Proteus.

But the indivisibility of the public power in England 217 has constantly kept the views and efforts of the people directed to one and the same object; and the permanence of that power has also given a permanence and a regularity to the precautions they have taken to restrain it.

Constantly turned towards that ancient fortress, the royal power, they have made it for seven centuries the object of their fear; with a watchful jealousy they have considered all its parts; they have observed all its outlets; they have even pierced the earth to explore its secret avenues and subterraneous works.

United in their views by the greatness of the danger, they regularly formed their attacks. They established their works, first at a distance; then brought them successively nearer; and, in short, raised none but what served afterwards as a foundation or defence to others.

After the Great Charter was established, forty successive confirmations strengthened it. The act called the Petition of Right, and that passed in the sixteenth

less the old distinction between them and the patricians, a coalition was then effected between the great plebeians, or commoners who got into these places, and the ancient patricians. Hence a new class of men arose, who were called nobiles and nobilitas. These are the words by which Livy, after that period, constantly distinguishes those men and families who were at the head of the state.