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a court as the House of Commons? The question is answered directly by the fact. Their unlawful commands are resisted, and they have no remedy. The imprisonment of their own members is revenge indeed, but it is no assertion of the privilege they contend fors. Their whole proceeding stops; and there they stand, ashamed to retreat, and unable to advance. Sir, these ignorant men should be informed, that the execution of the laws of England is not left in this uncertain defenceless condition. If the process of the courts of Westminister-hall be resisted, they have a direct course sufficient to enforce submission. The court of King's Bench commands the sheriff to raise the posse comitatus. The Courts of Chancery and Exchequer issue a writ of rebellion; which must also be supported, if necessary, by the power of the county.— To whom will our honest representatives direct their writ of rebellion? The guards, I doubt not, are willing enough to be employed; but they know nothing of the doctrine of writs, and may think it necessary to wait for a letter from Lord Barrington.

It may now be objected to me, that my arguments prove too much for that certainly there may be instances of contempt and insult to the House of Commons, which do not fall within my own exceptions; yet, in regard to the dignity of the House, ought not to pass unpunished. Be it so.- The courts of criminal jurisdiction are open to prosecutions, which the Attorney-General may commence by information or indictment. A libel, tending to asperse or vilify the House of Commons, or any of their members, may be as severely punished in the Court of King's Bench, as a libel upon the king. Mr. de Grey thought so, when he drew up the information upon my letter to his Majesty, or he had no meaning in charging it to be a scandalous libel upon the House of Commons. In my opinion, they would consult their real dignity much better, by appealing to the laws when they are offended, than by violating the first principle of natural justice, which forbids us to be judges when we are parties to the cause t.

I do not mean to pursue them through the remainder of their proceedings. In their first resolutions, it is pass sible they might have been deceived by ill-considered precedents. For the rest, there is no colour of palliation or

excuse. They have advised the king to resume a power of dispensing with the laws by royal proclamation "; and kings, we see, are ready enough to follow such advice. By mere violence, and without the shadow of right, they have ex punged the record of a judicial proceeding. Nothing remained, but to attribute to their own vote a power of stopping the whole distribution of criminal and civil justice.

The public virtues of the chief magistrate have long since ceased to be in question. But it is said, that he has private good qualities; and I myself have been ready to acknowledge them. They are now brought to the test. If he loves his people, he will dissolve a parliament which they can never confide in or respect. If he has any regard for his own honour, he will disdain to be any longer connected with such abandoned prostitution. But, if it were conceivable, that a king of this country had lost all sense of personal honour, and all concern for the welfare of his subjects, I confess, Sir, I should be contented to renounce the forms of the constitution once more, if there were no other way to obtain substantial justice for the people w.

JUNIUS.

SIR,

LETTER XLV.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

May 1. 1771

THEY Who object to detached parts of Junius's last letter, either do not meet him fairly, or have not considered the general scope and course of his argument.-There are degrees in all the private vices;-Why not in public prostitution ?-The influence of the crown naturally makes a septennial parliament dependent.-Does it follow that every House of Commons will plunge at once into the lowest depths of prostitution?-Junius supposes, that the present House of Commons, in going such enormous lengths, have been imprudent to themselves, as well as wicked to the public;-that their example is not within the reach of emulation ;--and that, in the first session after the next election, some popular measures may proba

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bly be adopted. He does not expect that a dissolution of parliament will destroy corruption, but that at least it will be a check and terror to their successors, who will have seen that, in flagrant cases, their constituents can and will interpose with effect.--After all, Sir, will you not endeavour to remove or alleviate the most dangerous symptoms, because you cannot eradicate the disease? Will you not punish treason or parricide, because the sight of a gibbet does not prevent highway robberies?—When the main argument of Junius is admitted to be unanswerable, I think it would become the minor critic, who hunts for blemishes, to be a little more distrustful of his own sagacity. The other objection is hardly worth an answer. When Junius observes, that kings are ready enough to follow such advice, he does not mean to insinuate, that, if the advice of parliament were good, the king would be so ready to follow it.

PHILO JUNIUS.

SIR,

LETTER XLVI.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

May 22. 1771.

VERY early in the debate upon the decision of the Middlesex election, it was well observed by Junius, that the House of Commons had not only exceeded their boasted precedent of the expulsion and subsequent incapacitation of Mr. Walpole, but that they had not even adhered to it strictly as far as it went. After convicting Mr. Dyson of giving a false quotation from the Journals, and having explained the purpose which that contemptible fraud was intended to answer, he proceeds to state the vote itself by which Mr. Walpole's supposed incapacity was declared,--viz. "Resolved, That Robert Walpole, "Esq. having been this session of parliament committed 66 a prisoner to the Tower, and expelled this house for a "high breach of trust in the execution of his office, and "notorious corruption when Secretary at War, was, and "is, incapable of being elected a member to serve in this "present parliament:"And then observes, that, from the terms of the vote, we have no right to annex the in

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capacitation to the expulsion only; for that, as the proposition stands, it must arise equally from the expulsion and the commitment to the Tower. I believe, Sir, no man, who knows any thing of dialectics, or who understands English, will dispute the truth and fairness of this construction. But Junius has a great authority to support him; which, to speak with the Duke of Grafton, I accidentally met with this morning in the course of my reading. It contains an admonition, which cannot be repeated too often. Lord Sommers, in his excellent tract upon the Rights of the people, after reciting the votes of the convention of the 28th of January 1689, viz.--“ That "King James the second, having endeavoured to subvert "the constitution of this kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people; and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having vio"lated the laws, and having withdrawn himself out of "this kingdom,hath abdicated the government," &c.makes this observation upon it: "The word abdicated "relates to all the clauses aforegoing, as well as to his "deserting the kingdom, or else they would have been "wholly in vain. And, that there might be no pretence for confining the abdication merely to the withdrawing, Lord Sommers farther observes, "That King James, by refusing to govern us according to that law by which he "held the crown, did implicitly renounce his title to it." If Junius's construction of the vote against Mr. Walpole be now admitted (and indeed I cannot comprehend how it can honestly be disputed), the advocates of the House of Commons must either give up their precedent entirely, or be reduced to the necessity of maintaing one of the grossest absurdities imaginable, viz. "That a com"mitment to the Tower is a constituent part of, and con"tributes half at least to, the incapacitation of the person "who suffers it."

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I need not make you any excuse for endeavouring to keep alive the attention of the public to the decision of the Middlesex election. The more I consider it, the more I am convinced that, as a fact, it is indeed highly injurious to the rights of the people; but that, as a precedent, it is one of the most dangerous that ever was established against those who are to come after us. Yet

I am so far a moderate man, that I verily believe the majority of the House of Commons, when they passed this dangerous vote, neither understood the question, nor knew the consequence of what they were doing. Their motives were rather despicable, than criminal in the extreme. One effect they certainly did not foresee. They are now reduced to such a situation, that if a member of the present House of Commons were to conduct himself ever so improperly, and in reality deserve to be sent back to his constituents with a mark of disgrace, they would not dare to expel him; because they know that the people, in order to try again the great question of right, or to thwart an odious House of Commons, would probably overlook his immediate unworthiness, and return the same person to parliament.-But, in time, the precedent will gain strength. A future House of Commons will have no such apprehensions, consequently will not scruple to follow a precedent which they did not establish.

The

miser himself seldom lives to enjoy the fruit of his extortion; but his heir succeeds to him of course, and takes possession without censure. No man expects him to make restitution; and, no matter for his title, he lives quietly upon the estate.

PHILO JUNIUS.

SIR,

LETTER XLVII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

May 25. 1771.

I CONFESS my partiality to Junius, and feel a considerable pleasure in being able to communicate any thing to the public, in support of his opinions. The doctrine laid down in his last letter, concerning the power of the House of Commons, to commit for contempt, is not so new as it appeared to many people; who, dazzled with the name of privilege, had never suffered themselves to examine the question fairly. In the course of my reading this morning, I met with the folowing passage in the Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. I. page 603. Upon occasion of a jurisdiction unlawfully assumed by the House, in the year 1621, Mr. Attorney

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