public interest. Righteousness towards the community is the only sacred foundation, the only solid support of the British throne; nor is it possible it should last through a single reign without such a support.

66 11. But if the British Government be entitled to our esteem, neither can we withdraw it from the Administration of that government. Towards your Majesty's present Ministers we profess no undue partiality. We have seen them subject to infirmity like other men; subject, like other men, to error in their best judgments, and to reverses of fortune in their happiest measures. But although we may not, and indeed cannot alike approve of every part of their conduct, yet believing that they have acted with fidelity and deserved well of their country, the People of England, in their hour of need, will no more desert them than that throne to which their counsels have given stability.

"12. Called to the helm at an awful period, we have witnessed them not always triumphant, but often deserving of being so; not always able to assimilate their large views with the little local interests of surrounding states, but evermore intending, and frequently accomplishing, high designs of virtue, and imparting to the drooping spirits of the Continent an animation that inspired them to oppose, and an exertion that enabled them to subdue, the common oppressor of mankind. We have beheld them, in the teeth of an Opposition more strikingly democratical than ever marked the annals of this kingdom, one unhappy reign alone excepted, preserving us in safety at home, covering us with glory abroad, and restoring to the nations of the world, in the midst of their despair, an almost miraculous security." (Declaration of the People of England, p. 9-13.)

We cannot leave our subject without declaring our concurrence with the opinions of this writer in behalf of things as they are; not because we are adverse to improvement, for we think that all human institutions, whether civil or religious, ought to participate in that course of advancement into which human intelligence naturally disposes every thing under its controul, when it is itself invested with all its natural freedom of operation, and its rights and privileges of culture; but because we think that the great excellence of our political predicament is this,—that it blends with an incessantly operative principle of improvement a jealous principle of conservation, the happy tendency of which is at once to moderate its impulse and to secure its progression. We are not very anxious about the pedigree of our constitution, nor care whether there existed or not in the Saxon institutions, the lineaments of our present liberties. There is, as it seems to us, great folly and danger in searching amongst records of barbarous times for the titles and muniments of our present sysstem. It never had its day of purity, nor is there any theory in which its standard can be found. It works well, and does its business, and we want no more. That the rights of humanity were better recognized and expressed in the first military es

tablishments which succeeded to the overthrow of the Roman power, than in that old and worn-out fabric of despotism; that in the early combinations of petty proprietors, under the first allodial divisions of the conquered lands, the origin of towns, vills, and burghs, might be obscurely traced; that in those rude associations of free and martial men, a root of liberty was buried to spring again, at a subsequent period, with a firm and regular growth; that the feudal system which succeeded the loose and desultory state of the Anglo-Saxon governments, did no more than suspend the growth of this ancient root of freedom, while it was adding secretly to its nourishment and maturing its own destruction; that in that system of institutions was potentially contained the principles of a manly freedom, which, as its rigorous distinctions wore away, became gradually unfolded, till, through a happy series of consequences, and often under a very unpromising exterior, a more cheerful order of things slowly and invisibly coming on, disclosed the beginnings of a steadier government, and the more permanent securities of freedom; that from the reign of Edward the First, in which the royal power of taxing the demesnes of the crown, without consent of parliament, was given up, to the death of the first Charles, a pretty regular advancement, amidst some relapses, is traceable, when by the silent accumulation of a fulminating force it exploded at a time when there was no sufficient stay or security to resist it; that from the death of Charles the First, the stages, by which our liberties advanced, became more apparent,, by the dispersion of great estates, the increasing dependence of the crown, the abolition of military tenures, the acquisition of the right of impeachment, that formidable engine of popular jealousy, the jurisdiction of elections, the exception of members from arrest, the postponement of the royal veto to the end of the parliamentary discussion, and a variety of other accessions of weight and privilege to the scale of the commons, too many here to enumerate, we are ready to admit; but the inference we draw from all this is, that there never existed any model of perfect liberty in the ancient practice of the British constitution, but that our system of representation, and actual state of our government and constitution under which so much felicity has been attained, found their true title to our reverence on the very obscurity of their lineage and pedigree,-not on any fiat of conventional authority, but on the marks they bear of the progressive improvement of each succeeding æra. Observing all this, we entertain a sober mistrust of all speculative change, all factitious reforms of a systematic and professing character; we shrink from disturbing, as we have before intimated, arrangements into which the constitution of our country has been im

perceptibly mellowed by its own inherent principle of adaptation to the condition of society. We wish it still to be slowly acted upon by public opinion, and to receive the impress from time to time of an expanding intelligence: we wish to see a constant watchfulness in the different departments of our political system, a frequent inquiry into abuses, and a temperate application of suitable remedies; and for this reason we deprecate and abhor every proposition of reform that the mean-minded selfishness of party men suggests in a spirit of opposition to their adversaries in power, or the favourites of an abused populace propose for the perpetuation of unfounded discontents; for in such reforms. we see a speedy end of all that ages have done for us; we see the death of the eagle from arrows winged with the feathers of its own plumage.

We are friends to influence, and we care not for the sound or the scandal of the word. We will not conceal our conviction that our constitution can have no practical existence without it. It holds its place by the oldest of all laws, the charter of necessity. The sun of prerogative has set, and we have marked with gratitude that crescent and secondary power, rising as its successor to fill the void in the system. To a government of force has succeeded a government of favour; and if we destroy. this substitute, we can have, by no possibility, any free and per manent government at all. The vessel of the state is sailing in a strong gale with her jury masts; if a shot from an enemy should carry those away, perish she must, do what we will. She has only these to keep her on her way in obedience to the helm ; and to this we are to trust to save her from those maxims of the Whigs, which in Mr. Fox's day composed the creed of the committees and sub-committees of reform; the proceedings of which are to be found in Mr. Wyvill's collection of political papers.→→→ "That boroughs in their present state are a public nuisance;" that "the gross abuse in the representation originates chiefly in royal innovation;" that "the ancient practice of our constitu tion ought to be restored;" that "the statute of qualification was truly a statute of disfranchisement;" that "the continuance of the same parliament beyond a single session, is a virtual annihilation of the commons of England;" that "the fabric of the present House of Commons ought to be utterly abolished." All which and many more such maxims were thought worthy of adoption by the general committee, and received the signature of C. J. Fox. Against these lying principles, and ferocious dogmas, we earnestly desire to be protected; and we know of nothing that can save us from them, but the conservative operation of that influence (the necessary quantum of which we are not now considering,—it is liable to excess and abuse, and must be watched

like other sources of power) of which it has been the constant cry of silly or crafty men that it is destroying our liberties. It is this influence which protects us from the tyranny to which universal suffrage, and annual parliaments, would infallibly conduct us, and from that aristocracy of wealth in which the kingly prerogative would be speedily merged.

It is to this influence that the men calling themselves Whigs would to-morrow resort, if to-morrow were to see them in power. They would, of necessity, give themselves the lie ere their administration was a week old. Popular favour! what would it do for them? Could they govern by it? Could they govern with it? They know they could not. Were they to make the experiment, they might float, indeed, by their levity for a short interval upon the surface of that flux medium, but the great water-flood would soon receive and ingulf them; soon would they be drifted down to that vagrant and stormy element taught by them to despise its embankments.

The Whigs, as they are called, were in place and power in 1806. It was a short opportunity; but they made the most of it to show what manner of men they were. Our allies were disgusted,—our enemies derided our baffled enterprizes,―favouritism found its way upwards and downwards through all the offices from the greatest to the lowest,-new places of office were justified,-pensions were multiplied,-the tax on income was doubled, and influence, the most unblushing, was employed in the general election.

It was about the same time that the Review, which is the best expounder of modern Whiggism, made some new and notable discoveries in politics. It found out, for the confutation of Mr. Cobbett's charges of the abandonment by the Whigs when in office of their professions and engagements to the people on the subject of parliamentary reform, that the representations and positions of that writer were "inflammatory " and " exagger ated," and particularly his standing maxim-that all our evils were produced by the motley texture of the House of Commons:-that placemen were better in parliament than elsewhere; -that the influence of great families in elections of members was rather beneficial than pernicious;-that the traffic in boroughs was in no danger of going to such an extent as to put the constitu tion to hazard;—that that country was the happiest in which the aristocracy was the most numerous and most diversified as to the sources of its influence; that in a country where rank, wealth, and office contributed the chief sources of influence over individuals, it was proper that rank, wealth, and office should make the greatest number of its legislators;-that in spite of placemen, and pensioners, and purchasers of boroughs, and nominees of

Lords, the House of Commons unquestionably contained a sufficient number and variety of persons to represent all the different opinions, and maintain all the different views of policy which existed in the country at large;—that there was no sentiment so democratical, no accusation so uncourtly, no interest so local, but it found there a voice to support and assist it; their discussions were sufficiently free and frequent; they were made sufficiently public; they excited a sufficient share of general attention and interest; while this was the case there was no danger of losing our liberties.

"There are some subordinate advantages," continues the Whiginterpreter of the constitution, "derived to the public by making them the electors of their lawgivers, and we should be well pleased, therefore, to see that privilege extended; but it goes so little to the essence of our constitutional freedom, that we cannot help thinking our Parliaments would be as useful and as valuable as they ever were, though they were mostly composed of persons chosen by lot, or by rotation, from the individuals of a certain fortune and education in each of the counties."

And again:

"In order to exercise their constitutional functions with safety, it becomes necessary for the King and the great families to exercise them in the Lower House, not against the United Commons of England, but among them but not in their own character and directly,— but covertly, and mingled with those whom it is substantially their interest and duty to controul."

And in another place:

"When a seat in Parliament is offered for sale, a pretty fair competition, we think, is open to politicians of all descriptions. The independent and well-affected part of the nation is far richer than Government, or the peerage; and if all seats in Parliament could be honestly and openly sold for ready money, we have no sort of doubt that a very great majority would be purchased by persons unconnected with the Treasury or the House of Lords.”

We have introduced the above Whig aphorisms, not because we think they deserve censure, though they are rather too strong for our constitutional prejudices, but because they show what a versatile being a Whig is, and how necessary it is to know the political position of the party to which he belongs, before we can predicate any thing of his political opinions. Compare the sentiments, to which we have been adverting, of this Reviewer, with his views taken at other times of the subject of parliamentary reform, and we shall find that a polar distance divides them. It may be worth while, too, to contrast the animadversions of Mr. Fox at a meeting of the electors of Westminster in 1782, when not only every species of influence appeared to be