He is the tenant of the day, and has no interest in the inheritance. The sovereign himself is bound by other obligations; and ought to look forward to a superior, a permanent interest. His paternal tenderness should remind him, how many hostages he has given to society. The ties of nature come powerfully in aid of oaths and protestations. The father, who considers his own precarious state of health, and the possible hazard of a long minority, will wish to see the family estate free and unencumbered". What is the dignity of the crown, though it were really maintained;--what is the honour of parliament, supposing it could exist without any foundation of integrity and justice ;-or what is the vain reputation of firmness, even if the scheme of the government were uniform and consistent, compared with the heart-felt affections of the people, with the happiness and security of the Royal Family, or even with the grateful acclamations of the populace? Whatever style of contempt may be adopted by ministers or parliaments, no man sincerely despises the voice of the English nation. The house of Commons are only interpreters, whose duty it is to convey the sense of the people faithfully to the crown. If the interpretation be false or imperfect, the constituent powers are called upon to deliver their own sentiments. Their speech is rude, but intelligible;-their gestures fierce, but full of explanation. Perplexed by sophistries, their honest eloquence rises into action. Their first appeal was to the integrity of their representatives;-the second to the king's justice ;-the last argument of the people, whenever they have recourse to it, will carry more perhaps than persuasion to parliament, or supplication to the throne. JUNIUS. SIR, LETTER XXXIX. TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. May 28. 1770. WHILE parliament was sitting, it would neither have been safe, nor perhaps quite regular, to offer any opinion to the public, upon the justice or wisdom of their proceedings. To pronounce fairly upon their conduct, M it was necessary to wait until we could consider, in one view, the beginning, progress, and conclusion of their deliberations. The cause of the public was undertaken and supported by men, whose abilities and united authority, to say nothing of the advantageous ground they stood on, might well be thought sufficient to determine a popular question in favour of the people. Neither was the House of Commons so absolutely engaged in defence of the ministry, or even of their own resolutions, but that they might have paid some decent regard to the known disposition of their constituents: and, without any dishonour to their firmness, might have retracted an opinion too hastily adopted, when they saw the alarm it had created, and how strongly it was opposed by the general sense of the nation. The ministry too would have consulted their own immediate interest, in making some concession satisfactory to the moderate part of the people. Without touching the fact, they might have consented to guard against, or give up the dangerous principle on which it was established. In this state of things, I think it was highly improbable at the beginning of the session, that the complaints of the people, upon a matter which, in their apprehension at least, immediately affected the life of the constitution, would be treated with as much contempt by their own representatives, and by the House of Lords, as they had been by the other branch of the legislature. Desparing of their integrity, we had a right to expect something from their prudence, and something from their fears. The Duke of Grafton certainly did not foresee to what an extent the corruption of a parliament might be carried. He thought, perhaps, that there was still some portion of shame or virtue left in the majority of the House of Commons, or that there was a line in public prostitution beyond which they would scruple to proceed. Had the young man been but a little more practised in the world, or had he ventured to measure the characters of other men by his own, he would not have been so easily discouraged. The prorogation of parliament naturally calls upon us to review their proceedings, and to consider the condition in which they left the kingdom. I do not question but they have done what is usually called the king s business, much to his Majesty's satisfaction. We have only to lament, that, in consequence of a system introduced or revived in the present reign, this kind of merit should be very consistent with the neglect of every duty they owe to the nation. The interval between the opening of the last and close of the former session was longer than usual. Whatever were the views of the minister in deferring the meeting of parliament, sufficient, time was certainly given to every member of the House of Commons, to look back upon the steps he had taken and the consequences they had produced. The zeal of party, the violence of personal animosities, and the heat of contention, had leisure to subside. From that period, whatever resolution they took was deliberate and prepense. In the preceding session, the dependants of the ministry had affected to believe, that the final determination of the question would have satisfied the nation, or at least put a stop to their complaints; as if the certainty of an evil could diminish the sense of it, or the nature of injustice could be altered by decision. But they found the people of England were in a temper very distant from submission ; and although it was contended that the House of Commons could not themselves reverse a resolution, which had the force and effect of a judicial sentence, there were other constitutional expedients, which would have given a security against any similar attempts for the future. The general proposition, in which the whole country had an interest, might have been reduced to a particular fact, in which Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Luttrell would alone have been concerned. The House of Lords might interpose ;--the King might dissolve the parliament; -or, if every other resource failed, there still lay a grand constitutional writ of error, in behalf of the people, from the decision of one court to the wisdom of the whole legislature. Every one of these remedies has been successively attempted. The people performed their part with dignity, spirit, and perseverance. For many months his Majesty heard nothing from his people but the language of complaint and resentment ;--unhappily for the country, it was the triumph of his courtiers that he heard it with an indifference approaching to contempt. The House of Commons having assumed a power un known to the constitution, were determined not merely to support it in the single instance in question, but to maintain the doctrine in its utmost extent, and to establish the fact as a precedent in law, to be applied in what ever manner his Majesty's servants should hereafter think fit. Their proceedings upon this occasion are a strong proof that a decision, in the first instance illegal and unjust, can only be supported by a continuation of falsehood and injustice. To support their former resolutions, they were obliged to violate some of the best known and established rules of the House. In one instance, they went so far as to declare, in open defiance of truth and common sense, that it was not the rule of the House to divide a complicated question at the request of a member *. But after trampling upon the laws of the land, it was not wonderful that they should treat the private regulations of their own assembly with equal disregard. The Speaker, being young in office, began with pretended ignorance, and ended with deciding for the ministry. We were not surprised at the decision; but he hesitated and blushed at his own baseness, and every man was astonished *. The interest of the public was vigorously supported in the House of Lords. Their right to defend the consti. tution against an encroachment of the other estates, and the necessity of exerting it at this period, was urged to them with every argument that could be supposed to influence the heart or the understanding. But it soon appeared that they had already taken their part, and were determined to support the House of Commons, not only at the expence of truth and decency, but even by a surrender of their own most important rights. Instead of performing that duty which the constitution expected from them, in return for the dignity and independence of their station, in return for the hereditary share it has given them in the legislature, the majority of them made common cause with the other House, in oppressing the people, and established another doctrine as false in itelf, and if possible more pernicious to the constitution, than that on which the Middlesex election was determined. By resolving, "that they had no right to impeach a judg"ment of the House of Commons in any case whatsoever, where that House has a competent jurisdiction," 66 they in effect gave up that constitutional check and reciprocal control of one branch of the legislature over the other; which is perhaps the greatest and most important object provided for by the division of the whole legislative power into three estates: and now, let the judicial decisions of the House of Commons be ever so extravagant, let their declarations of the law be ever so flagrantly false, arbitrary, and oppressive to the subject, the House of Lords have imposed a slavish silence upon themselves; they cannot interpose, they cannot protect the subject, they cannot defend the laws of their country. A concession so extraordinary in itself, so contradictory to the principles of their own institution, cannot but alarm the most unsuspecting mind. We may well conclude that the Lords would hardly have yielded so much to the other house, without the certainty of a compensation, which can only be made to them at the expence of the people. The arbitrary power they have assumed of imposing fines, and committing during pleasure, will now be exercised in its full extent. The House of Commons are too much in their debt to question or interrupt their proceedings. The Crown too, we may be well assured, will lose nothing in this new distribution of power. After declaring, that to petition for a dissolution of parliament, is irreconcileable with the principles of the constitution, his Majesty has reason to expect that some extraordinary compliment will be returned to the royal prerogative. The three branches of the legislature seem to treat their separate rights and interests as the Roman Triumvirs did their friends. They reciprocally sacrifice them to the animosities of each other, and establish a detestable union among themselves, upon the ruin of the laws and liberty of the commonwealth. Through the whole proceedings of the House of Commons, in this session, there is an apparent, a palpable consciousness of guilt, which has prevented their daring to assert their own dignity, where it has been immediately and grossly attacked. In the course of Dr. Musgrave's examination, he said every thing that can be conceived mortifying to individuals, or offensive to the House. They voted his information frivolous; but they were awed by his firmness and integrity, and sunk under it. |