diffolution of the whole form of government established by that people, reduces all the members to their original ftate of equality, and by annihilating the fovereign power repeals all positive laws whatfoever before enacted. No human laws will therefore fuppofe a cafe, which at once muft deftroy all law, and compel men to build afresh upon a new foundation; nor will they make provifion for fo defperate an event, as muft render all legal provifions ineffectual. So long therefore as the English conftitution lafts, we may venture to affirm, that the power of parliment is abfolute and without control.'

Our Author's conclufion is certainly juft, for the power of parliament being fupreme, muft confequently be without controul, that is, it must be free from political coercion. But nevertheless Mr. Locke's conclufion may be very fafely, adopted, For as the people give up their natural rights upon certain trufts either exprefs or implied, there still remains, if we may so call it, a certain natural fupremacy of power in the people to remove or alter the legislative, when fuch trufts are abused. Anarchy itfelf cannot be more intolerable, than a tyrannical and oppreffive government; and as to the danger of repealing all pofitive laws, and rendering all legal provifions ineffectual, that is not fo great as may be imagined: for admitting a cafe wherein men may be compelled to build a-frefh upon a new foundation, they may, by a fingle act of legiflation, revive all thofe laws; of which proceeding, examples are not wanting. Indeed what fhall be deemed fuch a breach of truft as fhall amount to a forfeiture, it is not eafy or fafe to determine. But there can be no doubt but that fuch may arife, and our Author, in a fubfequent part of his commentaries, has fuch a crifis in contemplation, His obfervations, on this occafion, are fo manly, liberal and judicious, that it would be unjuft to fupprefs

them.

As to fuch public oppreffions as tend to diffolve the conftitution, and fubvert the fundamentals of government, they are cafes which the law will not, out of decency, fuppofe; being incapable of diftrufting thofe, whom it has invefted with any part of the fupreme power; fince fuch diftruft would render the exercife of that power precarious and impracticable. For, whereever the law expreffes it's diftruft of abuse of power, it always vefts a fuperior coercive authority in fome other hand to correct it; the very notion of which deftroys the idea of fovereignty. If therefore (for example) the two houfes of parliament, or either of them, had avowedly a right to animadvert on the king, of each other, or if the king had a right to animadvert on either of the houses, that branch of the legiflature, fo fubject to animadverfion, would inftantly ceafe to be part of the fupreme power;

the

the ballance of the conftitution would be overturned; and that branch or branches, in which this jurifdiction refided, would be completely fovereign. The fuppofition of law therefore is, that neither the king nor either houfe of parliament (collectively taken) is capable of doing any wrong; fince in fuch cafes the law feels itself incapable of furnishing any adequate remedy. For which reafon all oppreffions, which may happen to fpring from any branch of the fovereign power, muft neceffarily be out of the reach of any stated rule, or exprefs legal provision: but, if ever they unfortunately happen, the prudence of the times must provide new remedies upon new emergencies.

Indeed, it is found by experience, that whenever the unconftitutional oppreffions, even of the fovereign power, advance with gigantic ftrides and threaten defolation to a state, mankind will not be reafoned out of the feelings of humanity; nor will facrifice their liberty by a fcrupulous adherence to those political maxims, which were originally established to preserve it. And therefore, though the pofitive laws are filent, experience will fur hith us with a very remarkable cafe, wherein nature and reason prevailed. When king James the fecond invaded the fundamental conftitution of the realm, the convention declared an abdication, whereby the throne was rendered vacant, which induced a new fettlement of the crown. And fo far as this precedent leads, and no farther, we may now be allowed to lay down the law of redress against public oppreffion. If therefore any future prince fhould endeavour to fubvert the conftitution by breaking the original contract between king and people, fhould violate the fundamental laws, and fhould withdraw himself out of the kingdom; we are now authorized to declare that this conjunction of circumftances would amount to an abdication, and the throne would be thereby yacant. But it is not for us to say, that any one, or two, of these ingredients would amount to fuch a situation; for there our precedent would fail us. In thefe therefore, or other circumstances, which a fertile imagination may furnish, fince both law and hiftory are filent, it becomes us to be filent too; leaving to future generations, whenever neceffity and the fafety of the whole shall require it, the exertion of thofe inherent (though latent) powers of fociety, which no climate, no time, no conftitution, no contract, can ever deftroy or diminish.'

Mr. Blackstone, as he proceeds, briefly touches the law of parliament, which, he fays, has its original from this one maxim, that whatever matter arifes concerning either houfe of parliament, ought to be examined, difcuffed, and adjudged in that houfe to which it relates, and not elsewhere.' Hence, for inftance, the lords will not fuffer the commons to interfere in fettling a claim of privilege; the commons will not allow the Jords to judge of the election of a burgefs; nor will either ·

houfe

house permit the courts of law to examine the merits of either cafes.

How far the courts of law have a right to examine in such cafes, it would not become us to enquire. It had not been amifs however, if the Author had taken notice of the opinion of the great Chief Justice Holt, who in the case of Lord Banbury, did in fome refpect interfere in a claim of peerage ;-and who likewise in the cafe of Ashby and White did interfere in the election of a burgefs; notwithstanding in the former case he was menaced by the houfe of lords, and in the latter by the house of commons. With refpect to the law of parliament, this noble Chief Juftice faid, that fuppofing it to be a particular law, yet if a question arofe determinable in the King's Bench, the King's Bench ought to determine it.

In tracing the method of making laws, we find the following obfervations with respect to the old method of proclaiming acts of parliament. When a bill has received the royal affent, it is then, and not before, a ftatute or act of parliament. "This ftatute or act is placed among the records of the kingdom; there needing no formal promulgation to give it the force of a law, as was neceflary by the civil law with regard to the emperors edicts: because every man in England is, in judgment of law, party to the making of an act of parliament, being prefent thereat by his reprefentatives. However, a copy thereof is ufually printed at the king's prefs, for the information of the whole land. And formerly, before the invention of printing, it was used to be published by the fheriff of every county; the king's writ being fent to him at the end of every feffion, together with a tranfcript of all the acts made at that feffion, commanding him "ut ftatuta illa, et omnes articulos in eifdem contentos, in fingulis locis ubi expedire viderit, publice proclamari, et firmiter te neri et obfervari faciat." And the ufage was to proclaim them at his county court, and there to keep them, that whoever would might read or take copies thereof; which cuftom continued till the reign of Henry the seventh.'

It is much to be lamented that fome ufage of this kind is not practised at prefent, which from the vaft multiplicity of ftatutes, efpecially of penal laws, feems to be more requifite than ever, It has been common of late indeed to print abftracts of parti cular acts, fuch as the Post-Office act, &c. in the News-papers. Why all penal laws fhould not be thus promulgated, it is not eafy to affign a reafon; and it muft, to a reflecting mind, afford a very ftrange idea of the wifdom and juftice of government, when it is feen that greater attention is paid to the intereft of the revenue, than to the liberty and life of the fubject.

Our Author in the next place takes the executive power into confideration, which, by our law, is vefted in the King or Queen:

Queen and in difcourfing of the royal rights and authority, he very properly confiders the King. 1. With regard to his title. 2. His royal family. 3. His councils. 4. His Duties. 5. His prerogative. 6. His revenue.

We are forry that our limits will not allow us to follow the Writer through thefe divifions, which are treated in a most fatisfactory and mafterly manner: more efpecially the chapter relating to the royal revenue. This nice and intricate fubject is rendered intelligible to an ordinary understanding. Nothing can be more accurate, more perfpicuous, and at the fame time more compendious: and the inference the Writer draws from a view of the antient and modern revenues of the crown, is too excellent to be omitted. He takes notice that the powers of the crown are now to all appearance greatly curtailed and diminished since the reign of king James the firft: particularly, by the abolition of the ftar chamber and high commiffion courts in the reign of Charles the firft, and by the disclaiming of martial law, and the power of levying taxes on the subject, by the fame prince: by the difufe of foreft laws for a century paft: and by the many excellent provifions enacted under Charles the second; efpecially, the abolition of military tenures, purveyance, and pre-emption; the habeas corpus act; and the act to prevent the the difcontinuance of parliaments for above three years: and, fince the revolution, by the strong and emphatical words in which our liberties are afferted in the bill of rights, and act of settlement; by the act for triennial, fince turned into feptennial, elections; by the, exclufion of certain officers from the house of commons; by rendering the feats of the judges permanent, and their falaries independent; and by reftraining the king's pardon from operating on paliamentary impeachments. Befides all this, if we confider how the crown is impoverished and ftripped of all it's antient revenues, fo that it greatly depends on the liberality of parliament for it's neceflary fupport and maintenance, we may perhaps be led to think, that the ballance is inclined pretty ftrongly to the popular fcale, and that the executive magiftrate has neither independence nor power enough left, to form that check upon the lords and commons, which the founders of our conftitution intended.

But, on the other hand, it is to be confidered, that every prince, in the first parliament after his acceffion, has by long ufage a truly royal addition to his hereditary revenue fettled upon him for his life; and has never any occafion to apply to parliament for fupplies, but upon fome public neceffity of the whole realm. This reftores to him that conftitutional independence, which at his first acceffion feems, it must be owned, to be wanting. And then, with regard to power, we may find perhaps that the hands

4.

of

of government are at leaft fufficiently ftrengthened; and that an English monarch is now in no danger of being overborne by either the nobility or the people. The inftruments of power are not perhaps fo open and avowed as they formerly were, and therefore are the lefs liable to jealous and invidious reflections; but they are not the weaker upon that account. In fhort, our national debt and taxes (befides the inconveniences before-mentioned) have alfo in their natural confequences thrown fuch a weight of power into the executive fcale of government, as we cannot think was intended by our patriot ancestors; who gloriously struggled for the abolition of the then formidable parts of the prerogative; and by an unaccountable want of forefight eftablifhed this fyftem in their ftead. The entire collection and management of so vast a revenue, being placed in the hands of the crown, have given rise to fuch a multitude of new officers, created by and removeable at the royal pleafure, that they have extended the influence of government to every corner of the nation. Witness the commifhioners, and the multitude of dependents on the customs, in every port of the kingdom; the commiffioners of excife, and their numerous fubalterns, in every inland diftrict; the postmasters, and their fervants, planted in every town, and upon every public road; the commiffioners of the ftamps, and their diftributors, which are full as fcattered and full as numerous; the officers of the falt duty, which, though a fpecies of excife and conducted in the fame manner, are yet made a diftinct corps from the ordinary managers of that revenue; the furveyors of houfes and windows; the receivers of the land tax; the managers of lotteries; and the commiffioners of hackney coaches; all which are either mediately or immediately appointed by the crown, and removeable at pleasure without any reafon affigned: thefe, it requires but little penetration to fee, muft give that power, on which they depend for fubfiftence, an influence most amazingly extenfive. To this may be added the frequent opportunities of conferring particular obligations, by preference in loans, fubfcriptions, tickets, remittances, and other money-tranfactions, which will greatly encreafe this influence; and that over thofe perfons whofe attachment, on account of their wealth, is frequently the most defirable. All this is the natural, though perhaps the unforefeen, confequence of erecting our funds of credit, and to fupport them, eftablishing out. prefent perpetual taxes: the whole of which is entirely new fince the reftoration in 1660; and by far the greatest part fince the revolution in 1688. And the fame may be faid with regard to the officers in our numerous army, and the places which the army has created. All which put together gives the executive power fo perfuafive an energy with respect to the perfons themfelves, and fo prevailing an intereft with their friends and families, as will amply make amends for the lofs of external prerogative.