to pay a fine of five hundred pounds, and for ever disqua lified to vote, and hold any office in a corporation—the faculty, however, being reserved to both, of procuring indemnity for their own offence, by discovering some other offender of the same kind.

"It has been moreover established, that no lord of parliament, or lord-lieutenant of a county, has any right to interfere in the elections of members; that any officer of the excise, customs, &c. who shall presume to intermeddle in elections, by influencing any voter to give or withhold his vote, shall forfeit one hundred pounds, and be disabled to hold any office. Lastly, all soldiers quartered in a place where an election is to be made, must move from it at least one day before the election, to the distance of two miles or more, and return not till one day after the election is finished.

The house of peers, or lords, is composed of the lords spiritual, who are the archbishops of Canterbury, and of York, and the twenty-four bishops; and of the lords tem poral, whatever may be their respective titles, such as dukes, marquises, earls, &c.

Lastly, the king is the third constitutive part of parlia ment: it is even he alone who can convoke it; and he alone can dissolve or prorogue it. The effect of a dissolution is, that from that moment the parliament completely ceases to exist; the commission, given to the members by their constituents, is at an end; and whenever a new meeting of parliament shall happen, they must be elected anew. A prorogation is an adjournment to a term appointed by the king; till which the existence of parliament is simply interrupted, and the function of the deputies suspended.

When the parliament meets, whether it be by virtue of new summons, or whether being composed of members formerly elected, it meets again at the expiration of the term for which it had been prorogued, the king either goes to it in person, invested with the insignia of his dignity, or appoints proper persons to represent him on that occasion, and opens the session, by laying before the parliament the state of the public affairs, and inviting it to take them into consideration. This presence of the king, either real or represented, is absolutely requisite at the first meeting;

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it is that which gives life to the legislative bodies, and puts them in action.

The king, having concluded his declaration, withdraws. The parliament, which is then legally intrusted with the care of the national concerns, enters upon its functions, and continues to exist till it is prorogued or dissolved. The house of commons, and that of peers, assemble separately; the latter, under the presidence of the lord-chancellor; the former, under that of the speaker; and both separately adjourn to such days as they respectively think proper to appoint.

As each of the two houses has a negative on the propositions made by the other, and there is, consequently, no danger of their encroaching, on each other's rights, or on those of the king, who has likewise his negative upon them both, any question judged by them conducive to the public good, without exception, may be made the subject of their respective deliberations. Such are, for instance, new limitations, or extensions to be given to the authority of the king; the establishing of new laws, or making changes in those already in being. Lastly, the different kinds of public provisions, or establishments-the various abuses of administration, and their remedies-become, in every session, the objects of the attention of parliament.

Here, however, an important observation must be made. All bills for granting money must have their beginning in the house of commons: the lords cannot take this object into their consideration but in consequence of a bill presented to them by the latter; and the commons have at all times been so anxiously tenacious of this privilege, that they have never suffered the lords even to make any change in the money-bills which they have sent to them; the lords are expected simply and solely either to accept or reject

them.

This excepted, every member, in each house, may propose whatever question he thinks proper. If, after being considered, the matter is found to deserve attention, the person who made the proposition, usually with some others adjoined to him, is desired to set it down in writing. If, after more complete discussions of the subject, the proposition is carried in the affirmative, it is sent to the other house, that they may, in their turn, take it into consider

ation. If the other house reject the bill, it remains without any effect: if they agree to it, nothing remains want ing to its complete establishment but the royal assent.

When there is no business that requires immediate dispatch, the king usually waits till the end of the session, or at least till a certain number of bills are ready for him, before he declares his royal pleasure. When the time is come, the king goes to parliament in the same state with which he opened it; and while he is seated on the throne, a clerk, who has a list of the bills, gives, or refuses, as he reads, the royal assent.

When the royal assent is given to a public bill, the clerk says, le roy le veut. If the bill be a private bill, he says, soit fait comme il est desiré. If the bill has subsidies for its object, he says, le roy remercie ses loyaux sujets, accepte leur bénévolence, et aussi le veut.-Lastly, if the king does not think proper to assent to the bill, the clerk says,, le roy s'avisera, which is a mild way of giving a refusal.

It is, however, pretty singular, that the king of England should make use of the French language to declare his intentions to his parliament. This custom was introduced at the Conquest, and has been continued, like other mat ters of form, which sometimes subsist for ages after the real substance of things has been altered: and judge Blackstone expresses himself on this subject in the following words: A badge, it must be owned (now the only one remaining), of conquest; and which one would wish to see fall into total oblivion, unless it be reserved as a solemn memento to remind us that our liberties are mortal, having once been destroyed by a foreign force.'

When the king has declared his different intentions, he prorogues the parliament.-Those bills which he has rejected remain without force; those to which he has assented become the expression of the will of the highest power acknowledged in England: they have the same binding force as the édits enrégistrés have in France, and as the populiscita had in ancient Rome: in a word, they

William the Conqueror added to the other changes he introduced, the abolition of the English language in all public as well as judicial transactions, and substituted for it the French that was spoken in his time; hence the number of old French words that are met with in the style of the English laws. It was only under Edward III. that the Eng lish language began to be re-established in the courts of justice.

are laws.-And though each of the constituent parts of the parliament might, at first, have prevented the existence of those laws, the united will of all three is now necessary to repeal them.

CHAP. V.

Of the executive power.

WHEN the parliament is prorogued, or dissolved, it ceases to exist; but its laws still continue to be in force; the king remains charged with the execution of them, and is supplied with the necessary power for that purpose.

It is, however, to be observed, that though, in his political capacity of one of the constituent parts of the parliament (that is, with regard to the share allotted to him in the legislative authority), the king is undoubtedly sovereign, and only needs allege his will when he gives or refuses his assent to the bills presented to him; yet, in the exercise of his powers of government, he is no more than a magistrate; and the laws, whether those that existed before him, or those to which, by his assent, he has given being, must direct his conduct, and bind him equally with his subjects. I. The first prerogative of the king, in his capacity of supreme magistrate, has for its object the administration of justice.

1o. He is the source of all judicial power in the state; he is the chief of all the courts of law, and the judges are only his substitutes; every thing is transacted in his name; the judgments must be with his seal, and are executed by his officers.

2o. By a fiction of the law, he is looked upon as the universal proprietor of the kingdom: he is in consequence deemed directly concerned in all offences; and, for that reason, prosecutions are to be carried on in his name in the courts of law.

3o. He can pardon offences, that is, remit the punishment that has been awarded in consequence of his prose. cution.

II. The second prerogative of the king is, to be the fountain of honour, that is, the distributor of titles and dignities: he creates the peers of the realm, as well as bestows the different degrees of inferior nobility. He moreover

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disposes of the different offices, either in the courts of law, or elsewhere.

III. The king is the superintendent of commerce; he has the prerogative of regulating weights and measures; he alone can coin money, and give a currency to foreign coin.

IV. He is the supreme head of the church. In this capacity he appoints the bishops, and the two archbishops; and he alone can convene the assembly of the clergy. This assembly is formed, in England, on the model of the parliament; the bishops form the upper house: deputies from the diocesses, and from the several chapters, form the lower house: the assent of the king is likewise necessary to the validity of their acts or canons; and the king can prorogue or dissolve the convocation.

V. He is, in right of his crown, the generalissimo of all sea or land forces whatever; he alone can levy troops, equip fleets, build fortresses, and fill all the posts in them

VI. He is, with regard to foreign nations, the represen tative and the depository of all the power and collective majesty of the nation: he sends and receives ambassadors; he contracts alliances; and has the prerogative of declaring war, and of making peace, on whatever conditions he thinks proper.

VII. In fine, what seems to carry so many powers to the height, is, its being a fundamental maxim, that THE KING CAN DO NO WRONG: which does not signify, however, that the king has not the power of doing ill, or, as it was pretended by certain persons in former times, that every thing he did was lawful; but only that he is above the reach of all courts of law whatever, and that his person is sacred and inviolable.

CHAP. VI.

The boundaries which the constitution has set to the
royal prerogative.

IN reading the foregoing enumeration of the powers with which the laws of England have intrusted the king, we are at a loss to reconcile them with the idea of a monarchy, which, we are told, is limited. The king not only unites in himself all the branches of the executive power; he not only disposes, without control, of the whole military power