That his faithful commons most humbly recommend, instead of the inconsiderate speculations of unexperienced men, that, on all occasions, resort should be had to the happy practice of parliament, and to those solid maxims of government which have prevailed since the accession of his majesty's illustrious family, as furnishing the only safe principles on which the crown and parliament can proceed.

We think it the more necessary to be cautious on this head, as, in the last parliament, the present ministers had thought proper to countenance, if not to suggest, an attack upon the most clear and undoubted rights and privileges of this house.+

Fearing from these extraordinary admonitions, and from the new doctrines, which seem to have dictated several unusual expressions, that his majesty has been abused by false representations of the late proceedings in parliament, we think it our duty respectfully to inform his majesty, that no attempt whatever has been made against his lawful prerogatives, or against the rights and privileges of the peers, by the late house of commons, in any of their addresses, votes, or resolutions: neither do we know of any proceeding by bill, in which it was proposed to abridge the extent of his royal prerogative: but, if such provision had existed in any bill, we protest, and we declare, against all speeches, acts, or addresses, from any persons whatsoever, which have a tendency to consider such bills, or the persons concerned in them, as just objects of any kind of censure and punish

If these speculations are let loose, the house of lords may quarrel with their share of the legislature, as being limited with regard to the origination of grants to the crown and the origination of money bills. The advisers of the crown may think proper to bring its negative into ordinary use; and even to dispute, whether a mere negative, compared with the deliberative power, exercised in the other houses, be such a share in the legislature, as to produce a due balance in favour of that branch; and thus justify the previous interference of the crown, in the manner lately used. The following will serve to shew how much foundation there is for great caution, concerning these novel speculations. Lord Shelburne, in his celebrated speech, April 8th, 1778, expresses himself as follows: Vide Parliamentary Register, vol. x.

The noble and learned lord on the woolsack, in the debate "which opened the business of this day, asserted that your lord"ships were incompetent to make any alteration in a money bill "or a bill of supply. I should be glad to see the matter fully and "fairly discussed, and the subject brought forward and argued upon precedent, as well as all its collateral relations. I should "be pleased to see the question fairly committed, were it for no "other reason, but to hear the sleek, smooth contractors from the "other house, come to this bar and declare, that they, and they "only, could frame a money bill; and they, and they only, could dispose of the property of the peers of Great Britain. Perhaps some arguments more plausible than those I heard this day "from the woolsack, to shew that the commons have an uncon"troulable, unqualified right, to bind your lordships' property, may be urged by them. At present, I beg leave to differ from "the noble and learned lord; for until the claim, after a solemn "discussion of the house, is openly and directly relinquished, I "shall continue to be of opinion, that your lordships have a right "to alter, amend, or reject a money bill."

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ment from the throne. Necessary reformations may hereafter require, as they have frequently done in former times, limitations and abridgments, and in some cases an entire extinction of some branch of prerogative. If bills should be improper in the form in which they appear in the house where they originate, they are liable, by the wisdom of this constitution, to be corrected, and even to be totally set aside, elsewhere. This is the known, the legal, and the safe remedy: but whatever, by the manifestation of the royal displeasure, tends to intimidate individual members from proposing, or this house from receiving, debating, and passing bills, tends to prevent even the beginning of every reformation in the state, and utterly destroys the deliberative capacity of parliament.-We therefore claim, demand, and insist upon it, as our undoubted right, that no persons shall be deemed proper objects of animadversion by the crown, in any mode whatever, for the votes which they give, or the propositions which they make, in parliament.

We humbly conceive, that besides its share of the legislative power, and its right of impeachment, that, by the law and usage of parliament, this house has other powers and capacities, which it is bound to maintain. This house is assured, that our humble advice on the exercise of prerogative will be heard with the same attention with which it has ever been regarded; and that it will be followed by the same effects which it has ever produced, during the happy and glorious reigns of his majesty's royal progenitors; not doubting but that, in all those points, we shall be considered as a council of wisdom and weight to advise, and not merely as an accuser of competence to criminate. This house claims both capacities; and we trust that we shall be left to our free discretion which of them we shall employ as best calculated for his majesty's and the national service. Whenever we shall see it expedient to offer our advice concerning his majesty's servants, who are those of the publick, we confidently hope, that the per

The duke of Richmond also, in his letter to the volunteers of Ireland, speaks of several of the powers exercised by the house of commons, in the light of usurpations: and his grace is of opinion, that, when the people are restored to what he conceives to be their rights, in electing the house of commons, the other branches of the legislature ought to be restored to theirs. Vide Remembrancer, vol. xvi.

+ By an act of parliament, the directors of the East-India company are restrained from acceptance of bills drawn from India, beyond a certain amount, without the consent of the commissioners of the treasury. The late house of commons, finding bills, to an immense amount, drawn upon that body by their servants abroad, and knowing their circumstances to be exceedingly doubtful, came to a resolution providently cautioning the lords of the treasury against the acceptance of these bills, until the house should otherwise direct. The court lords then took occasion to declare against the resolution as illegal, by the commons undertaking to direct in the execution of a trust created by act of parliament. The house justly alarmed at this resolution, which went to the destruction of the whole of its superintending capacity, and particularly in matters relative to its own province of money, directed a committee to search the journals, and they found a regular series of precedents, commencing from the remotest of those records, and carried on to that day, by which it appeared, that the house interfered, by an authoritative advice and admonition, upon every act of executive government without exception; and in many much stronger cases than that which the lords thought proper to quarrel with.

"I observe at the same time, that there is no charge or complaint suggested against my present ministers."-The king's answer, 25th February, 1784, to the address of the house of commons. Vide Resolutions of the House of Commons, printed for

Debrett, p. 31.

the publick faith, which the engagement of no state dependent on the fluctuation of personal favour, and private advice, can ever pretend to. If faith with the house of commons, the grand security for the national faith itself, can be broken with impunity, a wound is given to the political importance of Great Britain, which will not easily be healed.

That there was a great variance between the late house of commons and certain persons, whom his majesty has been advised to make and continue as ministers, in defiance of the advice of that house, is notorious to the world. That house did not confide in those ministers; and they withheld their confidence from them for reasons for which posterity will honour and respect the names of those who composed that house of commons, distinguished for its independence. They could not confide in persons who have shewn a disposition to dark and dangerous intrigues. By these intrigues they have weakened, if not destroyed, the clear assurance which his majesty's people, and which all nations, ought to have, of what are, and what are not, the real acts of his government.

If it should be seen that his ministers may continue in their offices, without any signification to them of his majesty's displeasure at any of their measures, whilst persons considerable for their rank, and known to have had access to his majesty's sacred person, can with impunity abuse that advantage, and employ his majesty's name to disavow and counteract the proceedings of his official servants, nothing but distrust, discord, debility, contempt of all authority, and general confusion, can prevail in his government.

This we lay before his majesty, with humility and concern, as the inevitable effect of a spirit of intrigue in his executive government; an evil which we have but too much reason to be persuaded exists and encreases. During the course of the last session it broke out in a manner the most alarming. This evil was infinitely aggravated by the unauthorized, but not disavowed, use which has been made of his majesty's name, for the purpose of the most unconstitutional, corrupt, and dishonourable influence on the minds of the members of parliament, that ever was practised in this kingdom. No attention, even to the exteriour decorum, in the practice of corruption, and intimidation employed on peers, was observed: several peers were obliged under menaces to retract their declarations, and to recall their proxies. The commons have the deepest interest in the purity and integrity of the peerage. The peers dispose of all the property in the kingdom, in the last resort; and they dispose of it on their honour and not on their oaths, as all the members of every other tribunal in the kingdom must do; though in them the proceeding is not conclusive. We have, therefore, a right to demand that no application shall be made to peers of such a nature as may give room to call in question, much less to attaint, our sole security for all that we possess. This corrupt proceeding appeared to the house of

commons, who are the natural guardians of the purity of parliament, and of the purity of every branch of judicature, a most reprehensible and dangerous practice, tending to shake the very foundation of the authority of the house of peers: and they branded it as such by their resolution.

The house had not sufficient evidence to enable them legally to punish this practice, but they had enough to caution them against all confidence in the authors and abettors of it. They performed their duty in humbly advising his majesty against the employment of such ministers; but his majesty was advised to keep those ministers, and to dissolve that parliament. The house, aware of the importance and urgency of its duty with regard to the British interests in India, which were and are in the utmost disorder, and in the utmost peril, most humbly requested his majesty not to dissolve the parliament during the course of their very critical proceedings on that subject. His majesty's gracious condescension to that request was conveyed in the royal faith, pledged to a house of parliament, and solemnly delivered from the throne. It was but a very few days after a committee had been, with the consent and concurrence of the chancellor of the exchequer, appointed for an enquiry into certain accounts delivered to the house by the court of directors, and then actually engaged in that enquiry, that the ministers, regardless of the assurance given from the crown to a house of commons, did dissolve that parliament. We most humbly submit to his majesty's consideration the consequences of this their breach of publick faith.

Whilst the members of the house of commons, under that security, were engaged in his majesty's and the national business, endeavours were industriously used to calumniate those whom it was found impracticable to corrupt. The reputation of the members, and the reputation of the house itself, was undermined in every part of the kingdom.

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late commission as an entire innovation on the constitution, and the setting up a new order and estate in the nation, tending to the subversion of the monarchy itself.

If the government of the East Indies, other than by his majesty's prerogative, be, in effect, a fourth order in the commonwealth, this order has long existed; because the East India company has for many years enjoyed it in the fullest extent, and does at this day enjoy the whole administration of those provinces, and the patronage to offices throughout that great empire, except as it is controuled by act of parliament.

It was the ill condition, and ill administration of the company's affairs, which induced this house (merely as a temporary establishment) to vest the same powers which the company did before possess, (and no other,) for a limited time, and under very strict directions, in proper hands, until they could be restored, or further provision made concerning them. It was therefore no creation whatever of a new power, but the removal of an old power, long since created, and then existing, from the management of those persons who had manifestly and dangerously abused their trust. This house, which well knows the parliamentary origin of all the company's powers and privileges, and is not ignorant or negligent of the authority which may vest those powers and privileges in others, if justice and the publick safety so require, is conscious to itself, that it no more creates a new order in the state, by making occasional trustees for the direction of the company, than it originally did in giving a much more permanent trust to the directors, or to the general court of that body. The monopoly of the East India company was a derogation from the general freedom of trade belonging to his majesty's people. The powers of government, and of peace and war, are parts of prerogative of the highest order. Of our competence to restrain the rights of all his subjects by act of parliament, and to vest those high and eminent prerogatives even in a particular company of mer

The attempt upon charters and the privileges of the corporate bodies of the kingdom in the reigns of Charles the Second and James the Second, was made by the crown. It was carried on by the ordinary course of law, in courts instituted for the security of the property and franchises of the people. This attempt made by the crown was attended with complete success. The corporate rights of the city of London, and of all the companies it contains, were by solemn judgment of law declared forfeited, and all their franchises, privileges, properties, and estates, were of course seized into the hands of the crown. The injury was from the crown; the redress was by parliament. A bill was brought into the house of commons, by which the judgment against the city of London, and against the companies, was reversed; and this bill passed the house of lords without any complaint of trespass on their jurisdiction, although the bill was for a reversal of a judgment in law. By this act, which is in the second of William and Mary, chap. 8. the question of forfeiture of that charter is for ever taken out of the power of any court of law. No cognizance can be taken of it except in parliament.

Although the act above mentioned has declared the judgment against the corporation of London to be illegal; yet Blackstone makes no scruple of asserting, that "perhaps in strictness of law, "the proceedings in most of them [the Quo Warranto causes] 64 were sufficiently regular," leaving it in doubt, whether this regularity did not apply to the corporation of London, as well as to any of the rest; and he seems to blame the proceeding (as most blamable it was) not so much on account of illegality, as for the crown's having employed a legal proceeding for political purposes. He calls it "an exertion of an act of law for the purposes "of the state."

The same security which was given to the city of London would have been extended to all the corporations, if the house of commons could have prevailed. But the bill for that purpose passed

chants, there has been no question. We beg leave most humbly to claim as our right, and as a right which this house has always used, to frame such bills, for the regulation of that commerce, and of the territories held by the East India company, and every thing relating to them, as to our discretion shall seem fit and we assert and maintain, that therein we follow, and do not innovate on the constitution.

That his majesty's ministers, misled by their ambition, have endeavoured, if possible, to form a faction in the country against the popular part of the constitution; and have therefore thought proper to add to their slanderous accusation against a house of parliament, relative to his majesty's prerogative, another of a different nature, calculated for the purpose of raising fears and jealousies among the corporate bodies of the kingdom, and of persuading uninformed persons belonging to those corporations to look to, and to make addresses to, them as protectors of their rights, under their several charters, from the designs which they, without any ground, charged the then house of commons to have formed against charters in general. For this purpose they have not scrupled to assert, that the exertion of his majesty's prerogative in the late precipitate change in his administration, and the dissolution of the late parliament, were measures adopted in order to rescue the people and their rights out of the hands of the house of commons, their representatives.

We trust that his majesty's subjects are not yet so far deluded as to believe that the charters, or that any other of their local or general privileges, can have a solid security in any place but where that security has always been looked for, and always found, in the house of commons. Miserable and precarious indeed would be the state of their franchises, if they were to find no defence but from that quarter from whence they have always been attacked. But the late house of commons, in passing that bill, made no attack upon any

but by a majority of one in the lords; and it was entirely lost by a prorogation, which is the act of the crown. Small, indeed, was the security which the corporation of London enjoyed, before the act of William and Mary, and which all the other corporations, secured by no statute, enjoy at this hour, if strict law was employed against them. The use of strict law has always been rendered very delicate by the same means by which the almost unmeasured legal powers residing (and in many instances dangerously residing) in the crown, are kept within due bounds; I mean, that strong superintending power in the house of commons, which inconsiderate people have been prevailed on to condemn as trenching on prerogative. Strict law is by no means such a friend to the rights of the subject, as they have been taught to believe. They, who have been most conversant in this kind of learning, will be most sensible of the danger of submitting corporate rights of high political importance to these subordinate tribunals. The general heads of law on that subject are vulgar and trivial. On them there is not much question. But it is far from easy to determine what special acts, or what special neglect of action, shall subject corporations to a forfeiture. There is so much laxity in this doctrine, that great room is left in favour or prejudice, which might give to the crown an entire dominion over those corporations. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true, that every subordinate, corporate right ought to be subject to controul; to superiour direction; and even to forfeiture upon just cause. In this reason and law agree. In every judgment given on a corporate right of great political importance, the policy and prudence make no small part of the question. To these considerations a court of law is not competent, and indeed an attempt at the least intermixture of such ideas with the matter of law could have no other eflect, than wholly to corrupt the judicial character of the court, in which such a cause should come to be tried. It is besides to be remarked, that if, in virtue of a legal process, a for