nest principle is worth all the mysterious policy and cunning of the world, and will ever conduct to more true wisdom and solid good. In the separation of a king and lords they intended a provision for public utility, but in the representatives of themselves, in the reserving to this representative body a controlling power in all the deliberations of the sovereign legislature, they contemplated the essence and the security of what was dear to themselves. What has preserved and transmitted this blessing to us can alone preserve and transmit it to our posterity. If the commons of England are not truly and honestly represented, the third estate is a mere name, and the popular liberty is the mere sufferance of the day; it rests not, as with our manly ancestors, on the solid security of holding it in our hands. If evil had not already originated from this degeneracy of our original constitution, yet, when the security is gone, evil must infallibly ensue ; and on the mere ground of prevention, it would at any moment be wise and worthy 1 of the people, to recover the government to that state, for which the petition prays. But to the plea of expediency is added the pressing one of necessity. The nation is bowing under the heaviest of ills, that a people can be conceived to exist under, and all proceeding from the very corruption of the representative body, which the petition deplores. These have been amply and pathetically stated by Major Cartwright, and therefore need not be again repeated. But there is nothing wonderful in these evils; the wonder is, that they have not sooner. made their appearance. When the proper guardian is removed from his trust, it were folly to look for it's preservation. If the crown united with it's confederate lords be represented by a great majority in the pretended house of commons, is it any wonder, that ministerial folly and wickedness should drive the nation to the pit? They who command all are not your agents, they receive no commission from you, they laugh at the idea of being accountable to you. They They know their proper master, and their master's pleasure they will do. Sure of being supported by the whole legislative body, the minister is emboldened to every attempt; flagitiousness springs out of security. But unless the people bow their necks to this abuse, to meet in stupid silence whatever of remaining ruin another profligate administration may bring upon them; no other path is left for them, than what the petition points out: a manly reassertion of their constitutional rights, and the giving motion and efficacy to those means, which may render the house of commons again the true representative and the faithful guardian of the nation. It is big with horrour but to think of the precarious ground, on which at every moment the existence of a free people rests. Divide the representative body into thrée parts; the people have not the appointment of so much as one of these parts. If they who create the other two should please to combine, and the growing prostitution of the higher ranks gives too much much credibility to such a supposition, one blow might decide our fate, and we might sink in an instant into servitude and oppression. We have no constitutional protector existing, which could resist and avert the awful ruin. What a prospect does the whole history of a late administration present! With what force does it bring home to the most stupid and obstinate the necessity of an instant reform! In the present moment a reform may save; another experiment like to what has past will place salvation out of the reach of all reform. He concluded with some observations on the Septennial Act. He asserted it to be the mere creature of meditated corruption, and that from the moment of it's violent birth, corruption has walked over the face of this country like a fiend of Hell. Truth and fact scorn the insulting plea of necessity, of a tender regard to the protestant religion, to the house of Hanover. Had the battles of Preston and Sheriff Muir not been fought before this daring power was usurped, the framers framers of the Septennial Act might have been believed to have acted from a patriot motive. But when the national fears were blown over, when the friends of Rome and the Pretender were humbled to the dust, only then, in the moment of triumphant security, was this monster of corruption brought forth. The continuance of Septennial Parliaments to this day is a demonstration of the principle, from which they proceeded. Surely the time has long ceased, since the Pope and James's son have been the objects of dread. If parliament were actually in the people's nomination, this act would alone suffice to vitiate parliament, and estrange it from the people. In such a length of time they forget their constituents, think themselves independent, become selfwilled, are worth a purchase which no ordinary form of virtue can resist, and in the hope and confidence of this the minister can dare to apply the national purse to their seducement. These are not dreams and speculations, they are the mere history of the progress |
