as you are a husband, as you are a father (your "filial duties, I own, have been religiously per"formed) is it bona fide for your interest, or your "honour, to sacrifice your domestic tranquillity, and "to live in a perpetual disagreement with your peo"ple, merely to preserve such a chain of beings as "North, Barrington, Weymouth, Gower, Ellis, On

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slow, Rigby, Jerry Dyson, and Sandwich? Their "very names are a satire upon all government! and "I defy the gravest of your chaplains to read the catalogue without laughing."

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For my own part, Sir, I have always considered addresses from parliament as a fashionable, unmeaning formality. Usurpers, idiots, and tyrants, have been successively complimented with almost the same professions of duty and affection. But let us suppose them to mean exactly what they profess. The consequences deserve to be considered. Either the Sovereign is a man of high spirit, and dangerous ambition, ready to take advantage of the treachery of his Parliament, ready to accept of the surrender they make him of the public liberty, or he is a mild, undesigning prince, who, provided they indulge him with a little state and pageantry, would of himself intend no mischief. On the first supposition, it must soon be decided by the sword, whether the constitution should be lost or preserved. On the second, a prince, no way qualified for the execution of a great and hazardous enterprize, and without any deter

mined object in view, may nevertheless be driven into such desperate measures, as may lead directly to his ruin; or disgrace himself by a shameful fluctuation between the extremes of violence at one moment, and timidity at another. The minister, perhaps, may have reason to be satisfied with the success of the present hour, and with the profits of his employment. 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 unincumbered *. 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 con

* Every true friend of the House of Brunswick sees with affliction how rapidly some of the principal branches of the family have dropped off.

tempt 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,

WHILE Parliament was sitting, it would neither have been safe, or, perhaps, quite regular, to offer any opinion to the public upon the justice or

wisdom of their proceedings. To pronounce fairly upon their conduct, 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 repre- : sentatives, and by the House of Lords, as they had been by the other branch of the legislature. De

spairing 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 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 have 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