ment, and had a very considerable insight into its practice. We who live under its protection cannot but acknowlege the excellencies which he has ascribed to it; and our power, wealth, and prosperity form irresistible evidence of their reality. The quarter from which it might apprehend danger did not escape that penetrating writer; and he has confidently predicted that its fall will proceed from that source. The present author is not nearly so well acquainted with its general structure, or its minute parts, as was the incomparable French President. We were glad to find him disposed to be its censor rather than its blind panegyrist, because we concluded that we were more likely to derive profit from the one than the other course: but we were disappointed in the expectation, and have been unable to discover that much might be learned from the animadversions of Signior Filangieri.

The author admits, however, that our constitution exhibits the most perfect example of a mixed government. He observes that

A mixed government may be said to be a government where the sovereign power or legislative authority is in the hands of the nation, represented by a public assembly, divided into three bodies-the representatives of the people, the nobility, or partricians, and the king, who ought to exercise it in conjunction with them. The king alone is in possession of the executive power, of every thing dependent on civil right or the law of nations; and he exercises this power with the most perfect independence.

Considering a mixed government in this light, there seem to be three inherent defects in its constitution. The independence of the executive power on the body which ought to be its superior. The secret and dangerous influence of the prince in the assembly of the bodies which represent the sovereignty; and the instability of the constitution. Legislation ought not to change the essence of a constitution; it should endeavour only to correct its defects. All the principles, then, dependent on the relation of the laws to the nature of this government should be directed towards a choice of the proper means of preventing these three vices. But before we search for remedies, we should be certain of the existing evils which they are

to cure.

In all the three different forms of government, which have been already examined, the several proportions of power are distributed according to their nature, and entrusted to the different hands, which are intended to put them into motion.

These different hands being dependent on each other, their movements are uniform, and their directions are the same. Every lit tle stream flows from one common fountain, and one master-wheel sets the whole machinery in motion. If the sovereign legislator in these several governments be not the executive instrument of the laws, but trust the judicial authority to the magistrates, he has notwithstanding the public force near him, and consequently the proper

Cc 4

instruments

instruments of making his orders respected, and of ensuring the obedience of the magistrates to his legal dictates. In this mixed government, however, the only magistrate charged with the execution of the laws, is the individual who has in his own hands the whole force of the nation.-The sovereignty, or in other words, the assembly which represents the sovereignty, may enact whatever laws it pleases, but the person entrusted with their execution is both independent of it, and even more powerful than the sovereignty from which they spring. How alarming would be his negligence! how terrible his excesses!

In a democracy the people, in an aristocracy the body of the nobles, and in monarchies the monarch, may dismiss the magistrate who abuses his power, despises the laws, and arbitrarily disposes of the lives and fortunes of the people. In this mixed government, where the magistrate is the king, and the sovereign is the assembly in which the king forms one of the three component bodies, who ought in conjunction to exercise the sovereignty, where does the right or power of removing him, or punishing him, reside?'

The same question may be asked with respect to a pure monarchy or aristocracy; in the latter, if the assembly miscon ducts itself, who shall visit it with punishment? The only constitutions, which ever provided for such extreme cases, have been that of Minos in antiquity, and that of Robespierre in our own days.

Signior Filangieri quarrels with the maxim of our law, that "the king can do no wrong." We had thought that, wherever this was promulgated, the concomitant position was also understood that, for every measure emanating from the prince, his ministers are responsible. Of this fact surely the writer could not have been ignorant, though he treats the present topic as if it were unknown to him.-The influence of the king in the Houses of Parliament is next objected to our constitution. In the present circumstances of the British State, this influence is truly vast; and perhaps it never was more strongly exemplified than at the moment in which we write: but it admits of checks and correctives, which continue to be supplied from time to time, if not so as to obtain for the people all the weight in the legislature that is desirable, at least sufficiently to secure to us a degree of political liberty which has scarcely ever been equalled under any form of government,

It is farther observed by the author;

In every other government, fear is the inseparable companion of oppression. In an absolute monarchy, when the prince is desirous of adding a fresh link to the chains of the people; breaks the compact by which he mounted the throne; and wishes to load his subjects with the burthen of intolerable taxes, he has the resentment of his people perpetually before his eyes, feels in imagination his throne shake under him, and sees the danger to which his very existence is

exposed.

exposed. But in a mixed government, the prince, free from any apprehension, may avail himself of the arm of the assembly, and vio late, with impunity, the rights of the people. He knows the assembly will always be responsible to the nation, and that the popular indignation will not be directed against his own person. He seems then to have an instrument for his purpose, fewer obstacles in his road, and he may frequently succeed if, with the inclination, he has the necessary talents for the enterprize. It will be sufficient if he destroys not with his own hand the outward form of the con. stitution if he respect the rights of the assembly, and if he be satisfied with making use of its influence, he may often carry his wishes into execution without any danger to himself."

Under a free government, it is clear that the resources of a state can be drawn forth much more than under a pure monarchy but is this to be considered as an evil, and as an objection to a system of liberty? Is it fair to presume that these resources are always to be misapplied?-It is here supposed that the king makes the assembly the instrument of establishing his power: but it is not stated by what means he is to inducé this body to dishonour itself, to surrender its own power, and politically to become felo de se. We have had great differences in our parliament, on questions of colonial and foreign interest; when in these it has been wrong, it has for the most part adopted the mistakes of the nation; and when the public has become undeceived, parliament rarely holds out long against its decisive and unequivocal wish. It has been warmly disputed whether America was to be taxed by our legislature, and whether the relations of peace were to be continued with France; and different parties have espoused different sides: but has it ever been proposed to repeal our Great Charter the Bill of Rights, or the Habeas Corpus act, or to set the King above the law? The author's apprehension is unsupported by any ground or colour of reasoning, What the lapse of ages will effect is known only to Omniscience; but at present we see no well-founded reasons for the fears of the Neapolitan philosopher. The quarter whence more immediate danger is to be apprehended is that of our finances; and it may reasonably be dreaded that the pressure of the public burthens, by weakening the attachment of the people to the admirable fabric of their government, may render them less unanimous and less resolute than heretofore in defending it from foreign and internal attacks. We would fain persuade ourselves that this danger, also, is at a great distance: but we most devoutly wish that statesmen and public spirited individuals may be duly alive to it, and may employ their best powers and utmost exertions in warding it off for eyer.

Chevalier

Chevalier Filangieri seems to think that, if James II. had been an able prince, and bad acted with the crafty policy of Henry Vill. he might have succeeded in his nefarious projects. This supposition may be pardoned in a foreigner: but the different state of the British parliament and people, at the one and the other period, affords abundant matter for its complete refutation. In the age of Henry, the rights of parliament had not been defined and securely recognized. Henry also owed his atchievements to the nearly equal balance between the two great religious parties during his reign. These are differences of incalculable moment.

The last defect charged on our constitution is the conti nued fluctuation of power in the bodies that divide it.'—It is true that our history, since the Norman conquest, exhibits at one time the monarch as the absolute master of faithful vassals, and at another the great barons holding their prince in tutelage; next we contemplate the king, aided by the commonalty and the cities and burgesses, keeping the lords in check; then we see the commonalty of the realm annihilate for a time the two other orders of the state; but the Restoration again placed things in a tolerably fair equilibrium, while the Revolution adjusted these matters as nicely perhaps as human affairs will admit. Since that period, nothing of the fluctuation here mentioned has been witnessed: but each state of the realm has performed its appropriate and exclusive functions with an exactness and uniformity which, from the wise and dispassionate, will rather demand admiration than invite criticism.

We find it also remarked by Signior Filangieri, that

The history of this nation is the history of the revolutions in its constitution, to which the temper and character of the reigning monarch have almost always given a temporary tone. Under a weak prince, from the poverty of his abilities, or the concurrence of embarrassing circumstances, the two houses have frequently usurped a portion of the royal prerogative. To a high-spirited prince they have as often surrendered a part of their own privileges. From hence it may be collected, that the vigour of parliament has, in many instances, originated rather from some transient and accidental cir cumstances, than a solid and permanent cause. Were, unfortunately, any future descendant of the house of Hanover to possess great talents, without its hereditary virtues, without the benevolence and moderation which so eminently distinguish both the present monarch and every part of his family; were a tempestuous reign, exposed to a foreign war and internal commotions at the same time, to be followed by a reign of peace; and there should be no longer any obliga tion on the reigning monarch to treat his subjects with mildness, for the purpose of making them contribute more cheerfully to the vast burthens of their taxes; the bands of regal dignity might probably become more flexible, the parliament lose its vigour, and the throne become again omnipotent.'

Here

Here again the ingenious writer betrays his ignorance of our history. The fact has been the very reverse of that which is here stated. The weakest of our princes have been those who have offered violence to our rights and liberties, as Edward, Richard II., James, Charles I., and James II.; while our ablest princes have manifested a deference to their parliaments.

The great security for our liberties is disclosed in the succeeding passage:

These data being subscribed to, there will not be any inconsistency in the king having fixed and permanent tribunals, which without any separate personal powers may exercise the judicial power as an emanation of the royal authority. As the existence of these tribunals is not destructive of the nature of this government, there could be no impropriety in the prince being obliged to make use of them in his judicial capacity. He would not, though obliged to make use of them, lose any part of his prerogative, for in the exer cise of that power, they would be always considered as the organs of his will. When the judicial power is separated in this manner from the executive, which is a separation in reality, though not in right, the king, notwithstanding the inviolability and the independence secured to him by the constitution, will neither be able to elude the laws, nor injure by any arbitrary means, the lives, the fortunes, or the honour of his subjects. Inviolable, independent, and out of the reach of any jurisdiction, as he is himself, the persons who represent him in these tribunals do not stand on the same ground. The de cisions of one court may be examined and repealed in a superior court, and when an individual has been oppressed by a magistrate, he may accuse him before a competent jurisdiction, and procure his punishment. There is not any of these measures adverse to the constitution of the government, aud the independence of the king will not be destroyed by them, but modified in favour of the public Becurity.'

In what follows, the author touches a sore place in the British body-politic; and his statement calls for many reflections, which our limits will not permit us here to indulge:

When the infamous traffic in the sale of the votes of the lower classes of the people shall be effectually suppressed; when abilities and integrity regularly influence their choice; and the laws exclude indigence, which is always suspected of venality, from the right of electing; virtue, supported in the public assemblies by hope, fear, and morality, will rally the majority on the side of the public interest. The nation will be truly free, and the possibility of an united assembly of spirited and independent patriots will be demon. strated.'

If we are obliged to this very intelligent and virtuous foreigner for his critical observations on our polity, we are not less gratified by the flattering terms in which he concludes this

part