addressed the House and said, that as there did not appear to be any business immediately coming before the House, he would take that opportunity of submitting his views on a matter of importance to the regularity of the proceedings of the House—he meant the mode commonly pursued of conducting private business. As it was now concluded for the present session, he deemed it fit he should state, that of the great quantity of such business dispatched during this session, nearly one fourth had been conducted without a compliance with the standing and sessional orders. Those orders had been intended for the protection of property; but under the system now acted on, and for a long time growing up, they were not only an imperfect safeguard, but even worse than none, because they held out the idea of its existence where it was not. It was true, each case wherein the orders had been dispensed with, possessed many merits, but the House would see that the aggregate of such cases was so great, that unless the rules were enforced more strictly, it would, in some time, be impossible to refuse any request for overlooking them. There might be more excuses than in ordinary Cases for what happened this session; because Easter fell unusually early, which abridged the proper period for transacting business of a private nature. He trusted the House would excuse him from drawing their attention to the subject, and hoping there would be an amendment in the management of the business he had alluded to in the next session.

rose to call the attention of the House, and of the public, to the great question of parliamentary reform. The resolutions he was then about to propose, were founded on those acknowledged principles of freedom, which, as they were the basis of all rational government, so were they of the laws and constitution of England; the best inheritance of the subject, and the best security for the stability of the throne—those principles which (however imperfectly acted upon) had given to this country whatever of advantage she possessed over the nations of the continent of Europe, where for the most part despotism unhappily prevailed. These acknowledged constitutional principles he had embodied in a series of resolutions, which, though he feared they might be considered of the longest, would, he hoped, be considered in no less a degree the most important ever submitted to the attention of the House, and of the country: and in the minds of gentlemen, whose imaginations presented to them nothing under the head of reform, but confused notions of wild and visionary projects tending to anarchy and tumult, he hoped it would produce no less conviction than surprise, to find that the whole tenor of what he had to propose, was in strict unison with principles not only professed by our ablest constitutional writers, but recognized even from the throne by every king of England, that had sat upon the throne for the last two hundred years, with the exceptions of Charles the 1st, and James the 2nd; how unfortunate the exceptions for themselves and the country, was but too obvious!

His resolutions commenced by advancing the fundamental position, that the only adequate security for good government consisted in, and was proportioned to the community of interest between the governors and governed. This community of interest was pointedly acknowledged in a long series of speeches from the throne, from the time of James the 1st, to the reign, and during the reign of the present king. Another principle recognized by the same high authority, and for the same length of time, was, that if on any occasion this community of interest ceased to have place, insomuch, that either one or the other must give way, the interest which ought to give way was not that of the many but that of the few, a proposition in itself incontrovertible, honorable to the throne to acknowledge, and (sanctioned by that high authority) protected and shielded from any possible imputation of temerity, disloyalty, Jacobinism, or treason. The preference thus due to the interests of the people, thus solemnly recognized, necessarily implied a grant of till the means requisite to secure so important and indispensable an end, or in other words, recognized a fair, free, and equal representation of the people in parliament, which was necessary on the one hand, to secure the legitimate and due dependence of the representatives of the people upon their constituents, by means of which alone this important object could by possibility be obtained; and on the other hand, to guard against the long experienced evils of a contrary dependence of the representatives of the people on the Crown, or on a corrupt and borough monger oligarchy.

If the panegyrics so frequently bestowed on the English constitution had any foundation in truth, the king and the people had one and the same interest, and there was no sufficient ground for such violent jealousy of the prerogative of the: Crown as many entertained. But, if he: disclaimed any unreasonable apprehension of the power of the Crown, he did at the same time insist upon, claim, and demand, on behalf of the people, that full, fair, free, and equal representation of them in the Commons House of parliament, which was the just and constitutional check to the power of the Crown—so checked, prerogative would cease to be dangerous to public liberty—so restrained within constitutional limits, it would be exercised, as it could only be constitutionally exercised, for the public benefit, on sudden emergencies, and in cases for which no legal enactment had made provision; this was the proper field for the beneficial exercise of the Crown's prerogative, and from its due exercise, the people had nothing to fear, provided always they were in possession of that share in the government which belonged to them of right, and for the establishment of which it was the object of his resolutions to point out provisions. The more he had scrutinized and reflected on the reinstatement of the people in their constitutional rights, the more just and simple, and easy and practicable it appeared. It had indeed become so familiar to his own mind from habitual investigation, that he laboured under that sort of difficulty in treating it, which was felt in the attempt to demonstrate an apparently self evident proposition. As he was aware, however, that there were many who had not turned their attention much to the subject, many who differed from him in opinion with respect to it, many who, though they agreed with him as to the necessity of reform, yet still did not concur with him as to the practicability or the safety of the extent to which him proposition carried it—under these circumstances it was incumbent upon him to discuss the subject on the present occasion, and it would be impossible for him to confine himself within such narrow bounds as he could otherwise have wished, both on his own account, and on account of those he was addressing. There were honest alarmists who, from sheer timidity or imbecility of mind, had raised a senseless clamour against the principles of reform, on account of their imputed tendency to generate wild and visionary theories, leading to anarchy and confusion, and to the subversion of all order and regular government in practice. But the fears and apprehensions of such persons would be allayed; the principles thus stigmatized would be vindicated, on a reflection that they were the same principles upon which our forefathers acted, upon which the English constitution was founded, and which in proportion to their having been observed or neglected, had uniformly been accompanied by a corresponding degree of prosperity on the one and, or of calamity on the other, to the country. That elections ought to be free, no man was bold enough in terms to deny. "Fiant electiones ritè et liberè," was a maxim of the common law. Freedom of election was, indeed, the life blood, the soul of every free state; and no man, he imagined, at all conversant with the history of this or any other country, would dispute, that in proportion as elections were free and frequent, was the security they afforded to the people. Annual parliaments, annually elected, and oftener when it was oftener necessary to convene par liaments, were equally and undeniably evidenced by the concurring testimony of the common law, the statute book, and our ancient records; and that formerly an extent of suffrage existed so general, that it would be difficult to attempt to fix the limits, was also evident. Whilst he stated this, he was willing to admit, that could it be ever so clearly demonstrated, it would by no means be decisive of the question as to what ought, under the actual circumstances of the country, to be the present limits to which it would be wise, reasonable, and practicable to extend it. This, he agreed, was a question which ought to stand on its own merits; and that the line now to be drawn was to be determined by the actual state of society, the general interest, and public utility. He had himself formerly intimated his intention of proposing a plan of reform, limiting the right of suffrage to such persons as paid direct taxes to the king, the church, and the poor. Had that been agreed to, be had no hesitation in saying, that it would then have satisfied the country Neither had he any doubt that it would have been effectual to its purpose; that is to say, an efficient control on the executive government, and a complete remedy for all the evils generated by that prolific monster and parent of every grievance, the permanent power of a borough monger faction, ever ready to usurp and barter the liberties of the people for the patronage of the Crown. It would have reunited those interests which ought never to be separated, of the king and the people, and rescued from the power of an oligarchy, both. He was then taunted with not acting up to his own principles, with not going far enough to give general satisfaction, which was so desirable to be obtained, and was the great end proposed by the measure; but he believed that his former plan would have effected every beneficial purpose, and given ample security to the country. But since that period the question of reform had been greatly agitated;. the ablest men of the age had fully discussed it, and sifted it to the bottom. Above all, Mr. Bentham had, with unrivalled ability, proved how easy and safe it was to carry the principles of reform into practical effect. The public mind had therefore made rapid advances, and as investigation had diffused knowledge, it had produced conviction of the necessity, as well as of the safety of principle of the most comprehensive right of voting, which for shortness had been called universal suffrage, though the term was certainly incorrect, because it was clear that some defalcation from it was, in practice, necessary—and it was not perhaps very important, provided it was sufficiently comprehensive to include the universal interest, where the line was drawn—the principle of what had been better called virtually universal suffrage, had been adopted not only by the great-number, but also by the most learned and enlightened men in the kingdom. To protect, however, those who maintained this principle from the charge of being wild, visionary, and dangerous, he not only relied on the clear and satisfactory reasoning by which it was supported, but had thought it necessary to trace back the ancient practice of the constitution to remote periods; so remote indeed, that some of those he was addressing might possibly think it not necessary, or even relevant to the question. He felt, however, that it was necessary in advocating so great, a measure to anticipate and guard against, as far as he was able, every possible, as well as probable objection. For although ancient custom and practice did not in the eyes of philosophers, weighing everything in the scale of reason, and forming a judgment after accurate investigation and reflection; although antiquity and custom did not offer to such persons any satisfactory proof of the merit of any question in dispute, yet as the bulk of mankind were not philosophers, they were for the most part much influenced in their opinions by considerations drawn from such sources; and it had always been looked upon as a great strengthening to a popular cause, and to popular rights, to be able to deduce from remote antiquity, the principles and practices upon which they were founded. He did not affirm that because a practice was ancient it was therefore desirable, and was willing, on the contrary, to admit that it could not be desirable, except inasmuch as it was consistent with the actual state of the country; yet, if the people claimed rights anciently possessed by their ancestors, and exercised without any ill consequences having been proved to have resulted from their enjoyment; and on the contrary, great mischief had always ensued from their having been neglected or trampled on; if such had been the uniform consequence of any infringement of the right of suffrage, the claim to that right on the part of the people was strengthened by the result of reason and experience; and however the question, as to the expediency of re-adopting such practice and such measures as formerly prevailed with beneficial effect, might be determined upon a fair discussion and after mature deliberation, no objection could be raised against them as being new, visionary, and wild.

The more remote the research into our history, the more plainly are indicated the evidences of our free constitution. That elections ought to be free was part of the common law: that they were also frequent appears from the ancient law, which ordained that two parliaments were to be held every year, or oftener, if need were; and this was de more," or common law. William 1st, vulgarly called the conqueror, to whose reign high prerogative lawyers have been in the habit of referring in support of overstrained power in the Crown, obtained the Crown not by military conquest of the nation, but by compact and agreement. The coronation oath which he took bound him to govern by the old Saxon laws, by which laws parliaments were to be held twice a year; and although he did not regard his coronation oath, that would be no argument against its validity, and still less against the validity of those rights which tie violated, not withstanding his oath to main- tain. And the history of the country sufficiently showed, that the violations of the fundamentally free principles of the constitution ever produced trouble and civil war; and it was only by again recurring to them that order and satisfaction could be restored: and this also proved the necessity for the preservation of freedom, of recurring from time to time to first principles, according to the advice of the most eminent political writers.

Subsequent to the time of William 1st, there could be no doubt that annual or more frequent parliaments were the practice, and that practice continued through a long period of time: from which practice no inconvenience was ever stated to have arisen. That these frequent parliaments were returned also by fresh elections, besides the testimony of the regular series of writs still extant, was also evidenced by the nature of the thing itself: for what was the object for which parliaments were convened; what but for the purpose of making the king acquainted with the views, feelings, wishes, and interests of the people in every part of his dominions. Every power was intrusted to the Crown for the benefit of the subject: without a parliament, a freely and frequently elected parliament, their interests could not be secured, nor could the king be made acquainted with the wishes and the grievances of the people. Had parliament been a long continued or permanent body, its object and its uses would entirely have ceased: and as seats in parliament were not in those times objects of profit or emolument, but, on the contrary, both burthensome and dangerous, as they exposed those who held them to the absurd prerogative of the Crown, for the purpose of intimidating the members, whom there were then no funds to corrupt—as it was of no advantage to the member to be long continued in that situation, nor to those who sent him, that he should so continue, the reason of the thing, and the interest of all parties concurred to shorten the duration of parliament.

Far, however, the most important part of this subject related to the extent and distribution of the suffrage by which the members were elected. Who were those who had the right to appoint representatives How far did that right or elective franchise extend? The true ground upon which the claim of the people ought to stand (which he agreed was that of rea- son and utility, whatever might have been the practice of our ancestors), there could be no better mode of ascertaining than by considering the foundation of the common law, which taking its rise from common consent, reason, and common sense, was founded upon maxims which neither time nor place, nor circumstances, could ever materially alter. One of these maxims stated by chancellor Fortescue, in his book on the Laws of England, was, "that no man could be taxed without his own consent." This principle was embodied in various statutes in the brilliant reigns of the first and third Edwards, than which none in our history were more glorious or more prosperous and happy. That every person ought to have a share in making the laws by which he was to be bound, was in itself so reasonable and so necessary, that sir William Blackstone justified upon that principle alone, the right of the government to inflict death upon offenders. "The lawfulness of punishing criminals," says he, "is founded upon this principle, that the law by which they suffer was made by their own consent." Upon the same principle he justified the scandalous neglect of the due promulgation of laws; of which neglect, however, ancient times were not so guilty as the present. There is no occasion, says Blackstone, to promulgate the laws, because every man is in judgment of law a party to making an act of parliament, being present thereat by his representative. This, though a miserable fiction—unfortunately, however, men were not hung in fiction—bore testimony to the principles for which he (sir Francis) was contending: it acknowledged the people's right, and at the same time exemplified the necessity of the exercise of that right, as the only means of happiness and safety.

The right of the people was, also acknowledged in the ancient coronation oath:, the king was asked if he would govern by the laws which the people chose. The words were "legesquas vulgaselegerit."—Words of larger import no language could afford; and with a view to the practical effect, the act of Henry 4th, passed on the grievous complaint of the people, of the infringement of their constitutional rights by undue interference in their elections, after stating that sheriffs should conduct themselves impartially, proceeds to point out who were required to choose knights of the shire. The words were, that all they that were present in the county court, as well suitors duly summoned, as others, should attend to the election of their knights for the parliament. Under these words, as universal as could well be imagined, all who were present, which might fairly be interpreted to mean all the inhabitants of the county, appeared to have had votes. Mr. Justice Black-stone, indeed, construed the word "others" to mean other suitors, i. e. other freeholders, or freeholders who were not duly summoned. This, however, appeared to him (sir F.) to be a construction not to be admitted, because all the freeholder were summoned by the sheriff's proclamation: all, therefore, were equally summoned, and equally duly summoned. To whom then could the word "others" be applied? If not to all the inhabitants of the county, he did not pretend to know; and to him it appeared, that under this act every inhabitant of the county had a right to vote, and this act he conceived to be declaratory of a common law right. The first restrictive statute, the first infringement upon this right was the act of Henry 6th, restraining the right of voting to freeholders of forty shillings a year, probably equal, if the difference of the value of money was considered, to 40l. a year of the present day. The pretences for this great infringement and violation of the rights of the people were upon the face of them evidently false: without alleging any fact of mischief having ever taken place, the act states that a great and outrageous concourse of people had attended to give their voice at elections, and that persons of no property pretended to have a voice equal to the most worthy knights and esquires, and that tumults, manslaughters, riots, and batteries, might very likely arise and be; and on this flimsy and false pretence, it disfranchised all who had, not freeholds to the amount of forty shillings a year. The statute did not state that any manslaughters or riots had actually arisen; but it asserted what could not be contradicted, that such things might possibly arise and be. Nor did he see, unless the construction he put upon the law was correct, how any such outrageous concourse of persons, and persons of no property, as was complained of, could have taken place. If this was a reason for disfranchising any part of the people, it would be a reason for putting an end to all elections. If the fear of riots, before any had ever arisen, was, a cause for disfranchising so large a portion of the people of England, what would be said to the present state of elections, to that system which was all riot, confusion, and disturbance. Elections were now for the most part scenes of drunkenness, perjury, and knavery. Proceedings which had no existence when the extended right of suffrage was exercised, were now witnessed at every election with the almost sole exception of one place where elections were conducted on a very extended scale of suffrage, and which he had the honour to represent. Here indeed the people had managed their own elections without riot, disturbance, perjury, drunkenness, or any of the malpractices before mentioned, and which shallow-minded persons were apt to consider as necessarily attendant upon popular elections. The citizens of Westminster, when left to themselves, had elected their representatives as peaceably and as quietly as a parish vestry elected a parish officer; and this was an experiment that went to prove the safety with which the people might be trusted with the exercise of their own rights. That the citizens of Westminster had been able under such disadvantageous circumstances as had existed, under the influence of a rotten borough system, and a septennial act—that under such circumstances they should have had the will and the ability to conduct themselves in so exemplary a manner was not less honourable to themselves than it was gratifying to the friends of rational reform, end no less useful as an example to the country.

The two simple points upon which, as upon pivots, every thing respecting liberty turned were security of person and security of property. Security of both was the common law and in alienable right of the people of England. That no man's person should be touched without due process of law—that no man should undergo punishment without legal trial, or have the fruit of his honest industry taken from him without his own consent, were such rational, equitable, and moderate claims, that no man of common sense or common honesty would be found to deny their justice. In proportion as they had been regarded, the country had always been contented and prosperous. Unfortunately, however, there had been some kings who had resisted them, and misfortune invariably followed. Amongst such kings was Charles the 1st, who having violated all just principles of government, broken down the barriers of property and personal safety, and wrested the laws by means of venal lawyers to purposes of oppression, filled the cup of national calamity to the brim, and was himself at length compelled to drink it to the very dregs. Charles the 2nd, not deterred by the example of his father, nor by the calamities of his country, nor by gratitude for his restoration, pursued the same unconstitutional career, and prepared thereby the downfal of his house. After the expulsion of James the 2nd, we came to a new constitutional aera, that of the making a new Magna Charta—a new declaratory act—the bill of the rights and liberties of the people of England. At this period the security to which the people were acknowledged to be entitled, ought to have been established—but for want of that which could alone give effect to the declaration of popular rights, that bill, together with all the other sham securities and unavailing declaratory acts with which the people have been so repeatedly deluded, failed upon trial. The necessity of a fair, full, and free representation of the people in parliament, was set forth in king William's declaration, upon which the Bill of Rights ought in honesty to have been framed; but this, with many other important provisions, was neglected to be enacted, or purposely omitted,—so numerous, indeed, were the sins of omission upon that occasion, that Mr. Fawkes had humourously observed, that the people at the revolution got a good bill of fare, but no dinner. Though the pretence was held out at the revolution, that the steps then taken were not only retrospective but prospective, not only to get rid of evil men, evil counsellors, evil kings, and corrupt judges, but to prevent such counsellors, kings, and judges, from ever again attempting, or assisting, to subvert the freedom of the country—though the bill declared against all unusual and cruel punishments, against packing juries and packing parliaments, against standing armies in time of peace, against corrupt interference in elections, and that elections ought to be free, yet no provisions were made to carry these declarations into effect, and to some of them a few words were added, which deprived the people of all the benefit which might have been derived from them. These magical words were "without consent or grant of parliament," or "unless it be, with consent of parliament." Behold here the talisman, by the effect of which, the glorious edifice of English liberty, which had been raised up by our ancestors with so much labour, persevered in with so much courage, and cemented with so much blood—by the application of these few simple words, as with the touch of a magician's wand, the fabrick vanished into air:

"into thin air,

And like the baseless fabrick of a vision

Leaves not a wreck behind."

What was the difference to us, whether we had suspended laws, money illegally raised, and standing armies, and other detestable measures of the most detestable despotic power—what was it to the people of England, whether infamous and tyrannical acts were perpetrated by corrupt lawyers, upon pretence of the prerogative of the Crown, or by corruption in the hands of the Crown, operating upon the venality of parliament? The effect was the same, whether the tyranny was exercised one way or the other, excepting that it was more mortifying to fall victims to the villany of false guardians, and self-appointed trustees, than it was to be overpowered by force, and submit to inevitable necessity. It was, as if a man was to be robbed by watchmen hired to protect him, to have that which was intended for his security, turned into the means of destroying him: this was an aggravation, not an alleviation, it was an insult not to be patiently endured. Had there been no such body as a corrupt House of Commons, there had still been some constitutional land-marks beyond any other power to remove: and the evil of the present corrupt oligarchy was so great, that he had rather there had been no House of Commons at all, than a House of Commons serving no other purpose than to destroy the liberties it was instituted to protect—a House of Commons in show and appearance—a House of Commons to trick, cheat, and delude, but answering no useful purpose of check and control—a House of Commons, that under the mask and sanction of being the representative body of the people, betrayed their freedom, and plundered their wealth. To prevent the continuance of such evils, there was one and only one way, which was by a recurrence to the first principles of the constitution—to make the great body of the people a constituent part of the government to give them their due weight in the state, and afford them the fair exer- cise of the inalienable rights to which they were justly entitled. He asserted that the rights of the people were inalienable; the government, so far as it was in other hands, was a trust for the people, and sacred, only, inasmuch as it answered the purpose of preserving the general freedom and security—it was a trust which had been forfeited, and might again be forfeited, by abuse, whereas, the rights of the people could neither be forfeited nor destroyed.

In advocating the principles embodied in his resolutions, he could appeal with confidence, not only to antient, but to modern authority. In the year 1780, when the Westminster committee, of which Mr. Fox was chairman, was appointed to inquire into the state of the representation, a sub committee, at which Mr. Sheridan presided, was instructed to investigate the question of reform, and to make thereon a report. That report, he had reason to think, was the first foundation of the petition presented to the House in the year 1793, by the Friends of the People. That petition unanswered and unanswerable, was still lying on the table, and he was inclined to think that it was the real parent of that numerous progeny which had since quite overlaid the House. The report made by Mr. Sheridan having analyzed the composition of the House, gave, amongst others, this striking result, viz. that a majority of the members was returned by about 6,000 miserable and dependent voters. These were voters of the precise description of those, the admission of whom to the right of suffrage was the main argument, real or pretended, against the system of radical reform. Under the present system, and at this time not universal suffrage, but the dregs of universal suffrage, unallayed by any richer matter, returned more than half the members of the House. The suffrages which were pretended to be of so malignant a quality, that they would vitiate the whole mass of wealth and population, even when absorbed by it, and when they would be as a drop in the ocean—the suffrages which were pretended to be so malignant as to poison and contaminate the whole, were nevertheless contended to be, when unrectified by any more wholesome mixture, and exercising alone the whole power, perfectly harmless, and indeed highly beneficial. Such was the result of the argument against comprehensive suffrage, and in favour of the pre- sent system. Such the logic by which the one was proved dangerous, the other beneficial. Mr. Sheridan's Report concluded with stating the representation to be still more inadequate with respect to property than population; and Mr. Fox, as chairman of the Westminster committee, to whom the sub-committee reported, signed resolutions to the following effect, viz. "that annual parliaments were the undoubted right of the people, and that the act which prolonged their duration was subversive of the constitution, and a violation on the part of the representatives of the sacred trust reposed in them by their constituents;" and "that the present state of the representation was inadequate to the object, and a departure from the first principles of the constitution." It might be said that Mr. Fox's opinion was different, and that he only signed his name as chairman of the committee. But this could not be acceded to, for though an official chairman of a public body must sign whatever is brought before him, merely to authenticate it; and though a volunteer chairman might sign his name to matters of regulation, in conformity with the principles he adopted, yet no man could be justified in signing his name to principles he believed false, and opinions he thought erroneous. Besides it was the opinion of Mr. Fox, in 1797, that the people had a right to be well governed—a right to form a constituent part of government, and that the best plan of representation was that which brought forward the greatest number of independent voters. Mr. Fox was therefore for the most comprehensive system of suffrage which could be combined with freedom of suffrage. Annual parliaments and the most extensive mode of suffrage had been advocated by the late duke of Richmond, in his famous Letter to colonel Sharman, with a strength of argument quite unanswerable. The same principles had been investigated and maintained with additional force and acuteness, and philosophical accuracy, accompanied with complete demonstration, of the safety with which they might be reduced to practice, by Bentham. If any anti-reformer could answer Mr. Bentham's arguments, he would do more efficacious service to reformers and anti-reformers, than could ever be effected by dealing; out false imputations and unsubstantiated slander, these being, with a due portion of misrepresentation and exaggeration, the only intellectual weapons hitherto employed by the enemies against the friends of reform. Mr. Pitt had declared the present system to be both the offspring and the parent of corruption, under which no minister could act according to the interest of the country, nor any honest man continue minister—but tempora mutantur—Mr. Pitt himself became minister, and exemplified the truth of his Own doctrine. Mr. Burke also had expressed his abhorrence of the corruption of this House—with a masterly hand depicted its character, and lamented its unnatural want of sympathy with the people: he had declared that "it would (among public misfortunes) be more natural and tolerable that the House of Commons should be infected with every epidemical phrenzy of the people, as this would indicate some consanguinity, some sympathy of nature with their constituents, than that they should in all cases be untouched by the feelings and opinions of the people out of doors. "The virtue, spirit, and essence of a House of Commons," said he, "consist in its being the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not instituted to be a control upon the people, as of late it has been taught, by a doctrine of the most pernicious tendency; but as a control for the people."^* Sir William Jones, whom Dr. Johnson called the most enlightened of the sons of men, had declared, that if the present representation could be compared to a tree rotten at the heart, he wished to see removed every particle of its rottenness, that a microscopic eye could discern: he derided many of the fashionable doctrines, that of virtual representation he held to be actual folly, as if they were to talk, of negative, representation, and contend that it involved any positive idea. He said that the right to be represented was an inherent right, and that it was mere banter to call men free who did not possess it.

It would be easy to go on citing opinions, till it was shown that almost all the great men which this country had produced from the time of the revolution, till the present moment, had brought concurrent authority, as well as unanswerable reason, in aid of the great pause of parliamentary reform. But he would now address a few words to those gentlemen who might think that he did not act with sufficient caution or prudence on the pre- sent occasion. To those sincere and honest friends of reform, who agreed with him as to the necessity of reform, though they had not made up their minds to the propriety of the extent to which he now proposed to carry it—to them he would say, that having tried all possible modes of obtaining co-operation short of compromising public principle, to such a degree as to lose all hope of public benefit, from persevering in the same course; having witnessed the result of the motion made a few nights ago, for repealing the Septennial act—an act so violent and unconstitutional, as to provoke and to justify Dr. Johnson in saying, "That the creation of twelve peers in one day, in queen Anne's time, in order to obtain a majority in the House of Lords, though violent enough, was still legal, and not to be compared to the contempt of national rights with which the House of Commons some time afterwards, at the instigation of Whiggism, elected themselves for seven years, having been elected for three by their constituents;"—having witnessed the fate of the motion to repeal that violation of the law and constitution of the country and to put us back only in that one respect to the state we were in at the time of the Revolution; having witnessed the fate of the proposals which had been made by himself and others for a more limited reform, he was convinced, and he thought that at length the step by step reformers would be convinced of the utter impracticability and hopelessness of that mode of proceeding, and he therefore no longer thought it prudent to pursue so inefficacious a course, or to withhold the plan, of the propriety of which his own reason was convinced; and which, he had no doubt, examination and experience would confirm. The object was, that elections should, be free and frequent, and that suffrage should be equal and comprehensive. The common law maxim, that elections ought to be free, was affirmed by the statute of Westminster, 1st, which says, that no great man, or other, shall by force, cunning, or contrivance, (such being, according to my lord Coke, the import of the word malice) disturb the freedom of election. The same thing was declared at the commencement of every parliament, by a resolution of this House; which', at the same time that it declares that it is a high breach of its privileges for any peer of the realm to interfere in the election of a member of the House of Commons, allows a petition to remain unnoticed for years on its table, which asserts and offers to prove, that a large proportion of its members are absolutely the nominees of peers, or returned through the influence of peers. It was high time that these laws, and these maxims, should cease to stand upon our Statute book, and upon our own Order book, "like the forfeits in a barber's shop, more in mock than mark; and that the public should feel, from their observance, some beneficial effects. But the freedom of elections could only be secured by extending and equalizing the right of suffrage, and shortening the duration of parliaments. On a fair distribution and extension of the elective franchise, and on a division of the United Kingdom into electoral districts, he calculated that each district would contain about 4000 voters, a number far too great for any man to bribe or terrify; and accompanied with annual elections, not presenting a sufficient interest to induce any man to attempt it. Some thought that additional security would be afforded by the ballot; and, as it appeared to him that the ballot could do no harm, and might occasionally be a protection, by leaving the voter at liberty to divulge or conceal his vote, he had introduced it into his resolutions, for the purpose of its being fairly discussed. For his own part, he confessed that he thought it unnecessary; for where there was no good for which to strive, no strife could grow up there from faction, and it was clear, that annual elections would offer no inducement to persons to become candidates for so short-lived a power, sufficient to make them willing to incur any mighty expense. The honour of the station would scarcely be more than a recompence for the trouble. The numbers would be too great to corrupt, and the benefit to be derived would be too small; so that if any one could be supposed to have the will, he would not have the power; and if he could be supposed to have the power he would not have the will; and there being neither will nor power, nor motive of any kind, it might seem superfluous to guard against actions which, under the supposed circumstances, there would be no temptation to commit.

^* See Burke's Works, vol. 2, p. 287., edit. 1808.

As to the extent of suffrage, it was evident, that in practice some line must be drawn; and he had no hesitation in saying that many were the points, at which the limits might be fixed with equal advantage and security to the public; provided always, that the extension was sufficient to comprehend the universal interest, and secure freedom of election. But if it could be shown, that the most comprehensive suffrage would produce no inconvenience in practice, it ought not in justice to be withheld. Mr. Bentham had, by incontrovertible argument, demonstrated that no danger whatever would arise from the most extensive suffrage that could be established. What sort of power was it that was conferred by the right of voting, if power it was to be called, on the part of the people? that every man should have a fraction, which fraction was a four thousandth part of a voice in the appointment of a fraction which was itself a six hundred and fifty-eighth part of a voice in the House of Commons so that every man, be his fortune what it might, should have the power of saying who he thought was the best character amongst his neighbours, to whom he would most willingly entrust the guardianship of his rights and liberty: now how was any mischief from this cause to be apprehended? First, a man of mischievous intention must be able to persuade the majority of four thousand persons, of equally mischievous intentions of course, to concur in the appointment of the mischievous person; and when so appointed, this mischievous person must have the concurrence of a Majority of 657 other mischievous persons also, elected by an equal number of other mischievous constituents; and when all these persons had agreed in the mischief to be committed, they must obtain the concurrence of the House of Lords, and subsequently of the king, before the supposed mischievous act could be carried into effect, to suppose it possible would be to suppose the possibility of the deliberate perpetration of an act of suicide, by a whole nation; it must be, in fact, a conspiracy of the nation against the nation—a result that could not be anticipated with a reference to any of the known principles of human action; it was to suppose human beings, without any possible motive, uniting to destroy their own happiness.

Some had objected to extending the tight of suffrage, on the ground that persons without education, without moral or political rectitude rank, or station in life, would be elected. This was an opinion contradicted by the history of all ages, times, and countries; and he had no hesitation in saying, that the very reverse would be, as it always had been, the result, unless history was all a fable, political writers all mistaken, and Machiavelli a beardless boy, just come from reading Livy. He tells us, in commenting upon that author, after maturely considering and deeply meditating upon the subject, and facts presented to his view, that the voice of the people, in matters of election at least, was not unaptly styled the voice of God—that there was no comparison between the wisdom of the choice of the people, and that of any king or small body of men. Indeed, says he, it is impossible to get the people to advance a worthless or unprincipled character, than which nothing is more easy or common with princes: and such was the modesty and sense of the Romans, that though they had violent struggles with the patricians to obtain an equal right of admission to all the great offices of the state—although they had been insolently, and arrogantly, and unjustly treated by the patricians, yet, having obtained that fair equality for which they contended, and notwithstanding their just causes of enmity on account of the insolence and oppression of the patricians, they still annually elected the great officers of the state from amongst the patrician families. So undeviatingly correct was their instinctive judgment with respect to elections, that, in the course of 400 years, the Romans, who elected annually all the great officers of the state, did not, in all that period, make above three or four elections, of which they had any reason to repent.

The people of this country had also, in former times, elected, not only members of parliament, but their leaders in war, and officers in peace, with the exception only of the immediate officers of the executive government in the appointment of the king. It was then but asking a little for the people of their ancient freedom to have a voice in the choice of their representatives in parliament. This would be but a small portion of their ancient birthright restored,—

"Nam qui dabat olim

Imperium fasces legiones omnia, nunc se Continet"—

He would not continue the quotation, which would be to libel the people of England, who are not like the degenerate Romans, anxious only for bread and public shows, but are hungry for the bread of liberty, for the recovery of the rights of their forefathers. They asked no bread but that which was earned by the sweat of their own brows; and when they had earned it, they asked nothing but that it should not be wrenched from them and their children by the hand of fiscal rapacity, to feed the profligate and unprincipled, the sons and daughters of corruption. The people of this country were honest, laborious, and high-minded; they asked not alms nor amusements, but demanded freedom—demanded to have check and control over the public purse, which purse was their's, and security to them and their children for the enjoyment of the fruits, the hard-earned fruits, of their at present unrequited industry. Security of person and property was the extent of their claim; and was it not monstrous that a government, which exercised a power of taking men by force from their homes and families, to be employed for its defence, which by compulsory ballot filled the ranks of its militia, and by violence and coercion manned its fleets, exposing them to all that is most formidable in fire and water combined, destructive and appalling to our common nature, which lavishly shed the blood of the people for its defence, should not only exclude the people from all efficient share in the government, not only from the making of laws, but even from any share in the appointment of those persons who were to determine when and how their blood, bones, and sinews, should be disposed of. This was all that was sought for under the most extended right of suffrage, that a man should have the opportunity afforded him of saying with whom he would wish to intrust his liberty, his property, and his life. This, surely, was not asking too much—surely there was nothing unreasonable in this, nothing to excite apprehensions, cause alarm, or be productive of anarchy and confusion. In every government, in every part of the world', the universal tenor of history, bears undeniable testimony to this great truth, that in proportion as the people have had any share in the government, in that proportion have all countries been peaceable, prosperous, and happy. On the contrary, wherever monarchy, aristocracy, and, still more, oligarchy prevailed, in an equal degree have those countries been miserable, discontented, and poor. As the people of England were anciently, and: ought of right now to be free—as freedom and frequency of election were parts of our con- stitution, and prevailed without inconvenience in ancient practice—and as security for property, liberty, and life, depended solely in this country on a constitutionally constituted House of Commons partaking the interests, sympathizing in the feelings, and faithfully representing the wishes of the people, he trusted that the resolutions which embodied those principles would not be rejected without being refuted, either as mistaken in principle or mischievous in practice.—Sir Francis then moved the following Resolutions:—

1. "That no adequate security for good government can have place, but by means of, and in proportion to, a community of interest between governors and governed; and that the truth of this principle has been unequivocally recognized in speeches delivered from the throne by all the kings of this realm (except only, king Charles the 1st, and king James the 2nd) from the accession of king James the 1st, down to the present reign, both inclusive; and that in particular, 1st. In a speech delivered by king James the 1st, on the 9th of November, 1605, his majesty, after speaking of the 'weal' of the king of this country, and the weal of the country itself, was pleased to add, whose weals cannot be separated: and, 2nd. In a speech delivered on the 14th of February, 1670; his majesty king Charles the 2nd, after speaking of a supply which was then demanded by him, was pleased to say, consider this seriously and speedily; it is yours and the kingdom's interest as well as mine: and, 3rd. In a speech delivered on the 18th of June, 1678, his said majesty king Charles the 2nd, after declaring his intention to open his heart freely to his parliament, on some points declared by him to be such as nearest concern, says he, 'both you and me, was pleased to add, and I hope you will consider them so, because I am sure our interests ought not to be divided; and for me they never shall:' and, 4th. In a speech delivered on the 21st of March, 1681, his said majesty king Charles the 2nd was pleased to say 'it is as much my interest, and it shall be as much my care as yours to preserve the liberty of the subject:' and, 5th. In a speech delivered on the 4th of November, 1692, his majesty king William the 3rd, speaking to his parliament, and through his parliament to his people, was pleased to say 'I am sure I can have no interest but 'what is yours,' adding, 'for I have no aim but to make you a happy people:' and, 6th. In an answer given to an address of this House on the 22nd of November, 1695, his said majesty king William the 3rd, was pleased to say, our interests are inseparable, and there is nothing I wish so much as the happiness of this country where God has placed me;' and 7th. In a speech delivered on the 21st of October, 1702, her majesty queen Anne was pleased to say, 'My interests and yours are inseparable, and my endeavours shall never be wanting to make you all safe and happy:' and, 8th. Ina speech delivered on the 29th of October, 1704, her said majesty speaking of a certain measure of government as being then begun upon, was pleased to say; 'I look upon this good beginning to be a sure pledge of your affections for my service, and for our common interest:' and, 9th. In a speech delivered on the 9th of April, 1713, her said majesty was pleased to say, 'those who would make a merit by separating our interests will never attain their ill ends:' and, 10th. In a speech delivered on the 18th of January, 1732, his majesty king George the 2nd was pleased to say, our safety is mutual, our interests are 'inseparable:' and 11th On the 16th of April, 1734, his said majesty king George the 2nd, speaking of 'sovereign and subject,' was pleased to say, 'their interest is mutual and inseparable:' and, 12th. On the 17th of October, 1745, his said majesty king George the 2nd was pleased to say, 'the interest of me and my people is always the same, and therefore he adds, in this common interest let us all unite:' and, 13th. In a speech delivered on the 10th of June, 1772, his present majesty, after speaking of all ranks of his faithful subjects, was pleased to say, 'let it be your constant care to assure them that I consider their interests as inseparably connected with my own: and, 14th. In a speech delivered on the 10th of June, 1791, his present majesty after the gracious assurance expressed in these words, viz. 'my constant endeavours will be directed to the pursuit of such measures as may appear to merest calculated to promote the interests and happiness of my people,' was pleased to add, 'which are inseparable from my own.'

2. "That on any occasion upon which this community of interest fails to be entire, the interest of the few, or of the one, ought to give way to the interest of the many; and that the truth of this principle has been recognized in speeches delivered from the throne by the kings of this realm, of every family from the accession of king James the 1st down to the present reign, both inclusive; and that in particular, 1. In a speech delivered on the 19th of March, 1603, his majesty king James the 1st was pleased to acknowledge and declare, 'when I have done all that I can for you, I do nothing but that which I am bound to do, and am accountable to God for the contrary; for I do acknowledge that the special and greatest point of difference that is between a rightful king and an usurping tyrant, is in this: that whereas the proud and ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom and people are only ordained for satisfaction of his desires and unreasonable appetites; the righteous king doth, by the contrary, acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the wealth, and prosperity of his people:' and again, if we will take the whole people as 'one body and mass, then as the head is ordained for the body, and not the body for the head, so must a righteous king know himself to be ordained for his people, and not his people for him:' and, 2. In a speech delivered on the 3rd of December, 1697, his majesty king William the 3rd was pleased to say, 'That which I most delight in is, that I have all the proofs of my people's affection that a prince can desire; and I take this occasion to give them the most solemn assurance, that as I never had, so I never will nor can have any interest separate from theirs:' and 3. On the 21st of November, 1717, his majesty king George the 1st, speaking of certain endeavours used by him on an occasion then mentioned was pleased to say, 'It is your interest that my endeavours should take effect; it is your interest, and therefore I think it mine;' and, 4. On the 13th of January 1730, his majesty king George the 2nd was pleased to say, 'I desire that the affections of my people may be the strength of my government, as their interest has always been the rule of my actions and the object of my wishes:" and 5. On the 3rd of April 1744, his said majesty king George the 2nd was pleased to say, 'I have no interest at heart but yours;' and therefore to add, 'and in that common interest let us all unite;' and, 6. On the 25th of June, 1751, his said majesty king George the 2nd was pleased to say, 'I have nothing to desire of you but to consult your own true happiness and interest:' and, 7. On the 15th of November, 1763, his present majesty was pleased to say as the interests and prosperity of my people are the sole objects of my care, I have only to desire now that you will pursue such measures as are conducive to those objects with dispatch and unanimity:' and, 8. On the 13th of November, 1770, his present majesty was pleased to say, 'I have no interest, I can have none, distinct from my people:' and, 9. On the 8th of May, 1771, his majesty was pleased to say, 'I have no other object, I can have no other interest than to reign in the hearts of a free and happy people;' and thereupon to add, 'the support of our excellent constitution is our common duty and interest:' and, 10. On the 24th of March, 1784, his majesty, speaking of the powers entrusted to him by law, was pleased to say, 'I can have no other object but to employ them for the only end for which they were given, the good of my people.'

3. "That under the government of this country, no such community of interest can have place, but in so far as the persons in whose hands the administration of public affairs is vested, are subject to the superintendence and control, Or check of the representatives of the people; such representatives speaking and acting in conformity to the sense of the people.

4. "That, according to established usage as evinced by speeches from the throne, and other public acts the members of this House being in their collective capacity styled representatives of the people, and the powers exercised by them, being on no other ground recognized as constitutional: it is only in so far as they are really and substantially representatives of the people, that the powers so exercised by them are constitutionally exercised.

5. "That it is only in so far as the members of this House are in fact chosen, and from time to time removeable by the free suffrages of the great body of the people, that there can be any adequate assurance, that the acts done by them, are in conformity to the sense and wishes of the people; and, therefore, that they can in truth, and without abuse of words, be styled, or declared to be representatives of the people.

6. "That no member of this House can, otherwise than by a notorious fiction, be styled a representative of any part of the people, other than of the part composed of such individuals, as have or might have voted on his election. And that, by the general appellation of representatives of the people, is, and ought to be understood, representatives of the whole body of the people.

7. "That the sense of the whole body of the people cannot be adequately conformed to, by their representatives, except in so far as the suffrage of each person in the choice of his representative has a force and effect, as equal as may be, to that of the suffrage of every other person. And that such equality of force and effect can not have place, except in so far as in the case of each representative, the number of persons possessing the right of voting on his election, is (as far as local circumstances will permit) the same as in the case of every other.

8.—"That on the occasion of electing a representative of the people, no man's suffrage can with truth be said to be free, except in so far as in the delivery of it, he stands unexposed to the hope of eventual good, or the fear of eventual evil to himself, and his connexions, from the power or influence of every other individual on account of his suffrage.

9.—"That the advantage and necessity of comprehensive, equal and free suffrage, has been recognized in divers speeches from the throne; and that in particular 1. In a speech delivered on the 8th of April 1614, his majesty king James the 1st, after saying, 'But most I desire to meet with you when I might ask you nothing but that we might confer together freely,' was pleased to add, 'and I may hear out of every corner of my kingdom, the complaint of my subjects; and I will deliver you my advice and assistance, and we will consult only de republica; so shall the world see I love to join with my subjects, and this will breed love, as acquaintance doth amongst honest men, and the contrary amongst knaves:' and, 2. On the 26th of March 1620, his said majesty king James the 1st, after speaking of certain abuses in the shape of monopoly, of which he says he knew not till discovered by parliament, was pleased to add, 'nor could so well be discovered otherwise in regard of the representative body of the people which comes from all parts of the country:' and, 3. On the 12th of Fe- bruary 1623, his said majesty king James the 1st was pleased to say, 'I hope to God I shall clearly see that you are the true representative body of my subjects therefore be you true glasses and mirrors of their faces, and be sure you yield the true reflections and representations you ought to do; and this doing, I hope you shall not only find the blessing of God, but shall also, by these actions, procure the thanks and love of my whole people for being such true and faithful glasses:' and, 4. In a speech delivered on the 14th of April 1640, by the Lord Keeper, by the command and in the presence of his majesty king Charles the 1st, his said majesty was pleased to say, 'By you as a select choice and abstract, the whole kingdom is presented to his majesty's royal view all of you, not only the prelates nobles, and grandees; but in your persons that are of the House of Commons, every one, even the meanest of his majesty's subjects are graciously allowed to participate and share in the honour of those counsels that concern the great and weighty affairs of the king and kingdom; you come all armed with the votes and suffrages of the whole nation:' and, 5. In a speech delivered on the 19th of March 1761, his present majesty was pleased to say, 'I do with entire confidence rely on the good dispositions of my faithful subjects, in the choice of their representatives and I make no doubt but they will thereby demonstrate the sincerity of their assurances which have been so cordially and universally given me in the loyal, affectionate, and unanimous addresses of my people.'

10.—"That the sense of the people can never be truly represented and conformed to by their representatives, otherwise than in so far as those representatives are dependent upon the wishes of their constituents for their continuance in their situation as representatives; such wishes of the constituents being expressed by" their suffrages, freely delivered as above.

11.—"That though, to give this dependence the greatest perfection of which, without regard to other objects it might be susceptible, would require that at all times it should be in the power of every electoral body to remove its representative in the same manner that it is in the power of every individual, who has granted to another a power of attorney, to revoke the same yet forasmuch as in such a state of things, the people, instead of deputing representatives to manage their public concerns, would be in their own persons engaged in the superintendance or management thereof, to the prejudice of the business of private life; hence it becomes necessary that this same power of removal should not have place otherwise than at certain stated and more or less distant periods.

12.—"That for as much as the dependence of the representatives upon their constituents will be the greater, the shorter the term is, during which they are exempt from removal; and as no inconvenience can be apprehended from one election at the least taking place in every year; and as it appears by divers statutes, and long continued practice in obedience thereto, that the principle of at least annual elections is conformable to the ancient laws and practice of this realm; it is therefore expedient that the people should be enabled to remove their representatives, and, if necessary, repair the misfortune of having made an improper choice, at least once in every year.

13.—"That the sense of the people, considered as the standard to which the sense of their rulers ought to conform is, not the sense entertained by the people in any past period of time and which may have undergone subsequent change, but, on the contrary, is the sense of the people taken in its freshest state; and that this truth has been repeatedly recognised in speeches delivered from the throne, by his late majesty king George the 2nd, and by his present majesty; and particularly, 1. In a speech delivered on the 21st of April, 1741, his said late majesty; after saying, 'I will accordingly give the necessary orders for a new parliament,' was pleased to add, 'there is not any thing I set so high a value upon as the love and affection of my people, in which I have so entire a confidence, that it is with great satisfaction I see this opportunity put into their hands of giving me fresh proofs of it, in the choice of their representatives:' and, 2. On the 12th of November 1747, his said late majesty was pleased to say, 'One of my principal views in calling this parliament was, that I might receive the most clear and certain information of the sense of my people;' and, 3. On the 6th of November 1761, his present majesty was pleased to say, 'I am glad to have an opportunity of receiving the truest information of the sense of my people by a new 'choice of their representatives:' and, 4. On the 8th of November, 1768, his majesty was pleased to say, 'The opportunity which the late general election gives me of knowing from their representatives in parliament, the more immediate sense of my people, makes me desirous, &c.' and 5. On the first of November 1780, his majesty was pleased to say, 'It is with more than ordinary satisfaction that I meet you in parliament at a time when the late elections may afford me an opportunity of receiving the most certain information of the disposition and the wishes of my people, to which I am always inclined to pay the utmost attention and regard:' and, 6. On the 24th of March, 1784, after mentioning the then situation of the country, his majesty was pleased to say, 'I feel it a duty I owe to the constitution and to the country, in such a situation to recur as speedily as possible to the sense of my people by calling a new parliament.'

14.—"That by the words 'Sense,' 'Disposition,' and 'wishes' of the people, employed in the said speeches, nothing less than the sense, disposition, and wishes of the whole body of the people can with propriety be understood; for as much as if it be the interest and duty of his majesty to collect and attend to the sense, disposition, and wishes of any one part of his people, it cannot be so in any less degree in regard to any other part.

15.—"That except by petitions, and even by those means, no otherwise than occasionally and partially, and therefore inadequately, the senses disposition, and wishes of the people can be conveyed to his majesty in no other manner than by the choice made by them of persons to sit and serve in the House in the character of representatives and, that except in the said inadequate manner by petitions those who have no part in the choice of representatives, cannot at any time make known to his majesty the part which their sense, disposition, and wishes has in the sense, disposition, and wishes of the whole body of the people.

16.—"That for as much as no power lodged in the bands of constituents can create or maintain the due dependence of their representatives, unless the good or evil which may be produced by the exercise of such power, be at all times in the expectation of the representatives greater than any that can be made to accrue to them by any other person or persons whose interest or supposed interest it may be to engage them in a violation of their trust; it is therefore necessary, that by all practicable means every representative of the people be rendered as completely exempt as possible from every such external influence.

17.—"That the offices, commissions, and emoluments, the power, rank, dignities, and other advantages, which are at the disposal of the Crown, constitute so many instruments of temptation, by which the members of this House are exposed to be seduced from their duty, and induced to sacrifice the general interest of the people, to the particular interest, or supposed interest of the Crown its, servants, and their adherents.

18.—"That as this House is now constituted, a large proportion of the members thereof obtain their seats by the appointment or favour of particular individuals without being elected, or at least with out being freely elected by any part of the people; and that such members are continually exposed to be seduced from their duty, and induced to sacrifice the general interest of the people, to their particular interests of their respective patrons."

19.—"That forasmuch as the influence of the Crown cannot be exercised and made productive of its natural effect, without counteracting and overpowering the influence of the people in the breasts of the members of this House, so as to engage them to make continual sacrifice of the interest of the people to the separate interests of the servants of the Crown and their adherents; such influence may with truth and propriety, be termed a sinister influence.

20.—"That parliamentary patronage not only prevents or interrupts comprehensive, free and equal suffrage, whereby alone the sense of the people can be made known, but operates on the one hand as a perpetual inducement to the servants of the Crown to favour the individuals who are possessed, thereof, at the expense and to the prejudice of the people; and on the other hand as a perpetual temptation to those individuals to maintain and increase the: influence of the Crown, from which they may expect to derive benefit for themselves and their connexions.

21.—"That by a resolution passed on the 6th of April 1780, it was declared by this House, that the influence of the 'Crown had increased, was increasing and ought to be dimnished.'

22.—"That since that time the influ- ence of the Crown has been greatly increased, on the one hand by the increase of the public debt in respect of the taxes raised for paying the interest thereof, and the profitable patronage and power exercised in relation to the several offices and commissions necessary for the collection of those taxes: and on the other band by the increase of the standing army, in respect of the patronage and power exercised in relation to the offices and commissions thereunto belonging, and the mean's of employing that same power to stifle the voice and destroy the liberties of the people.

23.—"That forasmuch as no adequate diminution of the influence of the Crown can now be effected, the only resource which remains is to correct this influence by a counterforce consisting of the influence of the people.

24.—"That this House taking into consideration the gracious intentions so often expressed by his majesty, particularly calls to mind the speech delivered on the 5th of December, 1782, in which his majesty, speaking to both Houses of Parliament, and after, declaring it to be the fixed object of his heart to make the general good, and true spirit of the constitution, the invariable rule of his conduct, was pleased to say, "To insure the full advantage of a government conducted on such principles depends on your tem per, your wisdom, your disinterestedness collectively and individually,—my people expect those qualifications of you, and I call for them:'—and again, the speech delivered on the 19th of May, 1784, in which his majesty was pleased to say, 'You will find me always desirous to concur with you in such measures as may be of lasting benefit to my people,—I have no wish but to consult their prosperity': and again the speech delivered on the 25th of January, 1785, in which his majesty was pleased to say, 'You may at all times depend on my hearty concurrence in every measure which can tend to alleviate our national burthens, to secure the true principles of the constitution, and to promote the general welfare of my people.

25.—"That this House taking also into consideration the gracious disposition of his royal highness, the Prince Regent, assures itself with the fullest confidence, that his Royal Highness, acting in the name and on the behalf of his majesty will be pleased to vouchsafe his sanction to all such measures as may be necessary for placing the influence of his majesty's people in this House on a firm and unalterable footing.

26.—"That therefore this House proceeding on the principles above declared, is resolved to make one great sacrifice of all separate and particular interests, and to proceed to establish a comprehensive and consistent plan of reform; in virtue whereof, the whole people of the United Kingdom, may be fairly and truly represented in this House; and, in order to that end, this House does hereby declare:—

I.—That it is expedient and necessary to admit to a participation in the election suffrage, all such persons as being of the male sex, of mature age, and of sound mind, shall, during a determinate time antecedent to the day of election, have been resident either as householders or inmates within the district or place in which they are called upon to vote.

II.—That the territory of Great Britain and Ireland taken together ought to be divided into 658 election districts, as nearly equal to each other in population as consistently with local convenience they may be: and, that each such election district ought to return one representative and no more.

III.—That for the prevention of unnecessary delay, vexation, and expense, as well as of fraud, violence, disorder, and void elections, the election in each district ought to be, begun and ended on the same day, and that day ought to be the same, for all the districts; and that for this purpose not only the proof of title, but also; every operation requiring more time, than is necessary for the delivery of the vote, ought to be accomplished on some day, or days, aptecedent to the day, of election, and that the title to a vote should be the same for every elector, and so simple as not to be subject to dispute.

IV.—That for the more effectually se curing the attainment of the above objects the election districts ought to be sub divided in to sub-districts, for the reception of votes, in such number and situations as local convenience may require.

V.—That for securing the freedom of election the mode of voting ought to be by ballot.

VI.—That for the more effectually securing the unity of will and opinion, as between the people and their representa- tives a fresh election of the members of this House ought to take place, once in every year at the least; saving to the Crown its prerogative of dissolving parliaments at any time, and thereupon after the necessary interval, summoning a fresh parliament.

The first Resolution being put,

seconded the motion. In what he had to say, he did not presume to think that he could add to the able arguments of his hon. friend, but he thought it his duty distinctly to declare his opinions on the subject. When he re collected all the proceedings of that House, and more especially, when he re collected the recent rejection of the motion for the repeal of the Septennial act, he confessed that he did not entertain much hope of a favourable result to the present motion; and he considered it as beneficial, principally as an exhibition of sound principles, and as showing the people for what they ought to petition. He would, perhaps, be told, it was unparliamentary to say that there were any representatives of the people in that House who had sold themselves to the purposes and views of any set of men in power; but the history of the degenerate senate of that once free people the Romans, would serve to show how far corruption might make inroads upon public virtue or patriotism. The tyranny inflicted on the Roman people, and man kind generally, under the shape of acts of the Roman senate, would ever prove a useful memento to nations which had any freedom to lose. It was not for him to prophecy when our case would be assimilated to theirs; but this he would say, that those who were the slaves to a despotic monarch, were far less reprehensible for their actions, than those who voluntarily sold themselves, When they had the means of remaining free. He gave his general and unequivocal assent to the resolutions proposed by his hon. friend. They were, in his opinion, such as the House ought to receive and agree to. And here, as probably if might be the last time he should ever have the honour of addressing the House on any subject—[Here the noble lord was so overpowered by his feelings as not to be able to proceed for some seconds.]—As this, he continued, might be the last time he should have the honour of addressing the House, he was anxious, to state to them what his opinions were of their conduct. It was now nearly eleven years since he had had the honor of a seat in the House, and since then there had been very few acts of theirs in which he could agree with the opinions of the majority. To say, that these acts were contrary to justice would not be parliamentary. He would not even go into the inquiry whether they tended to the national good or not; but he would merely appeal to the feelings of the landholders present he would appeal to the knowledge of those members who were engaged in commerce, and ask them, whether the acts of the legislative body had not been of a description, during the late war, that would, if not for the timely intervention of the use of machinery have sent this nation to total ruin? The country was burthened to a degree which, but for that intervention it would have been impossible for the people to bear. The cause of these measures having such an effect upon the country, had been examined, and gone into by his hon. colleague. They were to be traced to that patronage and influence which a number of powerful individuals possessed over the nomination of a great proportion of the members of that House; a power which, devolving on a few, became thereby the more liable to be affected by the influence of the Crown; and which had, in fact, been rendered almost entirely subservient to that influence. To reform the abuses which arose out of this system was the object of his hon. friend's motion. He would not, he could not anticipate the success of that motion; but he would say, as had been before said by the great Chatham, the father of Mr. Pitt, that if the House did not reform itself from within, it would be reformed with a vengeance from without. The people would take the subject up, and a reform would take place which would make many members regret their apathy in refusing that reform which might be rendered efficient and permanent. But unfortunately, in the present formation of the House, it appeared to him, that from within no reform could be expected and for the truth of this he appealed to the experience of the nearly 100 members who were then present, nearly 600 being absent; he appealed to their experience, whether they ever knew of any one instance where any petition of the people for reform was taken into consideration, or any redress afforded in con sequence of such petition? This he regretted because he foresaw the conse- quence which would necessarily result from it. He did trust and hope that, before it was too late, some measures would be adopted for redressing the grievances of the people; for certain he was, that unless some measures were taken to stop those feelings which the people entertained towards that House, and to restore their confidence in it, they would one day have ample cause to repent the line of conduct they had pursued. Those gentlemen who now sat on the benches opposite with such triumphant feelings, would one day repent their conduct. The commotions to which that conduct would inevitably give rise would shake not only that House, but the whole government and frame of society to its foundations. He had been actuated by a wish to prevent this, and he had had no other intention. He would not trespass longer on their time. The situation which he had held for eleven years in that House, he owed to the favour of the electors of Westminster. The feelings of his heart were gratified by the manner in which they had acted towards him. [Here the noble lord spoke with great agitation, and the House seemed to sympathise with his feelings]. They had rescued him from a desperate and wicked conspiracy, which had nearly involved him in total ruin. He forgave those who had so done, and he hoped when they went to their graves they would be equally able to forgive themselves. All this was foreign to the subject before the House—but he trusted they would forgive him—[Hear, hear!]. He would not trespass upon their time longer now—perhaps never again on any subject. He hoped that his majesty's ministers would take into their serious consideration what he had now said. He did not utter it with any feelings of hostility. Such feelings had now left him; but he trusted they would take his warning, and save the country, by abandoning the present system before it was too late.

^* said, that though it was far from his intentions to support the motion of his honourable friend, he could not withhold his tribute to the merits of the very learned and able speech with which he had introduced his resolutions. But, differing, as he did, from his honourable friend, and being most averse to that universal suffrage—that disconnexion of franchise and property which was the object of these resolutions, he was anxious to state a few of the reasons on which that aversion was founded. He was anxious to state also, that he felt no manner of disrespect towards those persons—in that House, where they were few in numbers, and out of doors, where they were numerous—who, he knew, conscientiously entertained the same opinions with his honourable friend. Far be it from him to view with levity, or to treat with ridicule, opinions which were conscientiously held by a great body of people in this country. He considered the people who entertained these opinions to be misled; he believed them to have been misled, partly from not having duly weighed and thoroughly sifted the question, and partly by the writings and speeches of those who had also not weighed and sifted the question with a due degree of attention. But to neither the one nor the other did he impute any but the most up right motives, though he differed from them in their conclusions; and he claimed from them the same degree of charity which he was so willing to extend to them. And he made a claim on the candour of the worthy baronet in particular with the more confidence to extend to him this charity; for, if he was not deceived, the worthy baronet's own conversion to the doctrine of universal suffrage, at least in the degree in which he had now avowed it, was but of recent date [Here sir F. Burdett intimated his dissent]. He begged his hon. friend's pardon, but he had understood so much from a noble friend of his, who was friendly to moderate reform; that this was the first time on which his hon. friend had advocated universal suffrage, and that he had formerly protested against it; and certainly his own recollection rather favoured that opinion. But however that might be, he needed only to appeal to the candour of his honourable friend (though he had not the claim on him now of hold- ing those opinions which his honourable friend himself once held) to be assured of a liberal construction of his conduct; he should still claim his indulgence for the; difference of opinion which existed on this subject between them—an indulgence which, on his part, he freely granted to the hon. baronet, and to those who believed with him.

^* As the Speech of Mr. Brougham on this occasion was deemed of peculiar importance in a party view, and with respect to the line taken by the Whigs on the question of Parliamentary Reform, it was hoped he might have been able to print a corrected account of it. But we understand that it was made unexpectedly, without any previous intention of speaking having been entertained by him; so that he could not comply with the wish generally expressed.

One of his principal objects in rising was, that it might not be supposed because he was hostile to that mode of reform which the hon. baronet: proposed, that he was therefore averse to the general principle of reform altogether. Nothing was more erroneous than to suppose, that because a man refused to support the one he must therefore be adverse to the other. He professed himself to be an advocate for reform, but it was, though in his opinion an efficient yet a moderate one when compared with the plan which the House had just heard while he entered this protest against the conclusions of his honourable friend, he agreed with him in opinion respecting the conduct of those who treated with contempt every kind of reform merely because it was reform. If he had to deal with these people, he would only appeal to the conduct of parliament itself, particularly during the last 20 years Those who argued that all reform whatever would lead to the destruction of the constitution, they who professed themselves such enemies to the very name of reform—had been, in practice, in parliament itself the greatest of all reformers. They or their colleagues in Ireland, had altered the qualifications of electors had changed the elective franchise—they had let in one class of electors to-day, and they had let in another class to-morrow. They had proceeded through a long course of changes all eminently entitled to the name, of parliamentary reform, and had only stopped when they terminated their career by a parliamentary revolution the annihilation of the parliament of. Ireland by the union of the two kingdoms—a measure for which he was cordially thankful although he could not approve of the means by which, it had been effected; for that measure had beep, perhaps, more beneficial to the empire than all the more baneful acts of the individuals by whom it had been accomplished had been injurious to it. Still, though this was a measure most beneficial to the country for he was convinced that no measure was ever fraught with more advantage to both islands, or tended more; to their mutual strength and prosperity it was impossible to deny that it was one of the greatest changes in the internal policy and parliamentary constitution of this country which had taken place since the constitution had assumed its present shape. He, therefore, protested against considering all reform as a dangerous innovation, in the sense of a revolution, which put in jeopardy the best interests of the country.

He came now to make a few remarks on the train of argument by which his honourable friend had supported this motion. If he came into the House with his mind prejudiced against the question, those arguments which he had heard in support of it had certainly not removed his prepossessions. He had often heard his hon. friend argue most conclusively, but he begged to be allowed to say without any disrespect, that never were, arguments more inconclusive than those which had been used by his hon. friend on the present occasion. The hon. baronet, in his elaborately reasoned resolutions, had confined himself to one species of authority, not founded on the Statute Book—not derived from Magna Charta—which did not rest, on the dicta of any of the judges, or on the resolutions of this or the other branch of the legislature, or even on the learned treatises which his hon. friend had so often referred to such as Mr. Prynne's and others, but a species of authority, which ranked in his estimation lower than the least the speeches from the throne, from the reign of James 1st, that model of a constitutional monarch, down to the very happy, or at least the very long reign of his present majesty. With the omission of George 1st, his hon. friend had shown that all those princes had recommended certain principles. The first of these was so self evident, that it recommended itself, and he would even admit the king's speeches as an authority for it, low as he rated that species of authority. That proposition was, that no adequate security for good government could be obtained, but by means of, and in proportion to, the community of interest between the governors and governed. But this was a principle which no man ever doubted. If all their majesties, of happy memory, and all other royal personages had held their peace upon the subject, no one would ever have doubted the propriety and the necessity of having the interest of the sovereign blended with that of his subjects, in order to insure the safety and prosperity of the state. The proposition was indeed self-evident, although some of those princes, whose speeches his honourable friend had quoted, had nevertheless cared but little for the happiness of the people. When they said, that the happiness of the people and their own were inseparably united, they did not sincerely believe it but said so merely from courtesy. It was nothing but the language of courtesy to the people, when they were coming to them for a supply of money. But with respect to the propositions in favour of annual parliaments and universal suffrage, in attempting to support them by the authority of king's speeches, his honourable friend would allow him to say, that he had not acted with his usual candour, but had perverted a little those royal documents. Because it was said in a speech from the throne, that his majesty was happy to meet the representatives of the people in a new parliament, this, according to his honourable friend, was a proof that the king was a friend of frequent elections. It was marvellous, however, that the date of the new parliament should always be six or seven years after the date of the old. This showed that kings, if they really had such an ardent desire for frequent parliaments, indulged more temperately in that than they were supposed to do in many other of their inclinations. He was afraid that in taking this language as favourable to frequent parliaments, his hon. friend, in the language of the schools, had understood it secundum modum recipientis, according to the sense of the hearer, and not in the sense of those who uttered it. He was astonished that among all those speeches of princes, his hon. friend did not mention a much more remarkable document than any of them, the speech which lord Chatham put into the mouth of the present king on his accession to the throne, and which, in his mind, was worth all the authorities which he had brought forward. In that speech his majesty was made to say, that he was born a Briton, and that he should ever deem it his proudest satisfaction to be the first citizen of a free people. But all these speeches from the throne were neither more nor less than the composition of the king's ministers, and they were always viewed and treated as such by parliament. The addresses, which echoed back the tale, were never understood to pledge any member of that House to any particular vote upon the many questions that arose in the course of the session. A king's speech was usually known as a vague unmeaning general composition, in which as little as possible was to be said in a large number of civil and sounding phrases. Mr. Windham had once shown his opinion of such compositions when in alluding to a gentleman who had been much employed in preparing royal speeches, and who was himself one of the most skilful as well as eloquent of ministerial orators, he exclaimed, "I verily believe he could speak a king's speech off hand."

His hon. friend had endeavoured to show that annual parliaments and universal suffrage were the ancient law of parliament, though he had admitted that it was not alone sufficient to prove their antiquity; and as he agreed with him that it was no argument in favour of universal suffrage or annual parliaments in the present day to show that universal suffrage and annual parliaments were formerly the law of the country, he should hold, therefore, that even were this so, the case still remained to be proved. The hon. baronet, however, said he adduced authorities to show that such was the ancient law of parliament, not with the view of proposing that this law should be revived, merely because it was ancient, but to show that it was not that visionary doctrine which it was said to be by the antagonists of that doctrine. He would admit, that if his honourable friend proved this, he would prove that the doctrine was not a novelty; but he denied that it followed, that the doctrine was not visionary; because it might still be one of the most visionary doctrines that ever entered into the brains of a projector, though annual parliaments and universal suffrages formerly were the ancient law, to introduce them at present, if they were not adapted to the present state of things. Suppose he proposed that they should return to the savage state, which was still more ancient—it was not indeed so old as the Creation, but it was very old—the Golden Age was still older. Suppose he proposed a return to domestic slavery, which was very ancient.—However, as this was a tender subject with many members, he would not touch on it. But, suppose he proposed a return to villainage where 23rds if not half of the people were attached to the soil, this would not be novel; but it would still be as visionary (he could not change the epithet) as that tor which many persons now contended.

His hon. friend was fond of quoting Magna Charta; but he was rather unfortunate in the chapter from which he had made his quotation on this occasion; for the very second word of the passage carried in it a refutation of the doctrine it was cited to support. The words were "Nullus liber homo capiatur, &c." The first word nullus, he would admit proved nothing; but then came the second liber—it was not nullus homo, but the epithet "liber" was added to qualify and limit the expression, thereby to recall to his hon. friend's recollection, if he had forgotten it, that, in those pure times of the constitution, when the monarchy was in all its splendor, respected abroad as it was united at home, having recently emerged, by the by, from a seven fold division—in the days when there were no rotten boroughs, no corrupt elections, no circumscribed suffrages, when parliaments were not merely annual, but when there were sometimes more than three of them in one year—in that golden age of the constitutution (unless the lustre of the metal was impaired in its progress from the heptarchy to the period of Magna Charta), it appeared from this chapter of Magna Charta, that liberty was only allowed to those who had property in men, instead of being the property of men. Absurd, visionary, and even detestable, as a proposition to return to a state of slavery was, a very learned man, a great patriot, and one of the most ardent and sincere friends of liberty that ever lived—Mr. Fletcher, of Saltoun—had proposed, in that parliament, in which he was a constant and strenuous advocate for popular rights, as a relief for the state of mendicity which then existed in Scotland, that the people of that country should return to the Greek and Roman practice of domestic slavery. Mr. Fletcher supported his proposition by the same arguments which his hon. friend had used in support of his doctrine of universal suffrage, namely, that it was an old practice of the country. He did not mean that the hon. baronet was likely to make any proposition quite so extravagant, but it showed how chimerical his argument was.

But he was at issue with his honourable friend, not merely as to argument, but as to the fact. Admitting the fact, he had hitherto denied the inference; but now he denied the fact. He was certainly convinced of the naked fact, so far as it related to the mere duration of parliaments. The stream of authorities set directly in favour of those who maintained that the practice had been to assemble parliaments once a year—nay, that there were even instances of parliaments oftener than price a year. For his own part, he was an advocate for shortening the duration of parliaments—he was even much incluned to the opinion of those who were for limiting the duration of parliaments to the shortest term. But supposing he assented to this, he should hardly think it fair or reasonable, on the ground of there having been Saxon or Norman parliaments, which only lasted a few days, and that the usual practice in those times was annual parliaments, to maintain, that therefore it should be held, that annual parliaments were according to the strict letter of the constitution. For supposing he assented to the fact, on examination it would be found an authority more in name than in reality. At that time it was necessary to compel men to serve in parliament, and to indemnify them by wages. To what purpose, then, was all the useless lumber of learning connected with the subject brought forward? Parliament sat only a few days: no regular session had ever been held. They were called at the will of the prince for a few days to answer his purpose, but there was no defined time for their being continued together, nor any fixed period when their labours should terminate, and a new election be had. Upon a careful and attentive investigation: of the subject, he was satisfied that although the practice was to elect annually, that it was not the law; and that there was nothing to prevent the same parliament from sitting more than one year, if the king had been so disposed.

With respect to universal suffrage, his hon. friend was a little more pressed for authorities. Here the royal orations failed him. Large and copious as that stream of authority had been when it only was brought to prove such generalities as that the ruler is interested in his people's happiness, it soon dwindled as the application to the present question be came closer, and when the extension of the franchise was the point, it trickled an imperceptible rill. But he would venture to say, that the authority of the king's speeches with which he had garnished his resolutions, was not more flimsy than the quotations from the old writs with which he had garnished his speech. He said, that the words "all freeholders summoned to the court, and others, could only be interpreted to mean all persons whatever. This was no great compliment to the precision of our ancestors, who, his hon. friend would have it, were more verbose and circumlocutory than the draughtsmen of bills in the present day. He here made them use eight doubtful words instead of one, respecting which there could have been no difficulty—eight equivalent words instead of the single and simple word "all." The courts of law had laid it down as a maxim, that when in any Taw there was a particular description followed by a general term, the interpretation should be, not according to the general term, but according to the previous particular description. This was the opinion of Blackstone, whose authority in this respect, though unfortunately modern, had at least equal weight with the authority of the king's speeches quoted by his hon. friend.—The hon. baronet then went to the original language of parliamentary writs; and finding one word in three tongues, he pressed each version, with a synonyme in one of those tongues, as so many several arguments in his favour. But not one of the varieties carried him a single step beyond the ordinary English expression. The words "plebs," "vulgus," commonauté, "and" "commonalty," might be construed as the hon. baronet chose; but they left the question of universal suffrage just where they found it. "These terms," said his hon. friend "surely comprehend all persons, and therefore universal suffrage was the ancient law." But had his hon. friend taken the word, "Commons," and argued that, because this was the House of commons, it ought to be returned by universal suffrage, it would be as much to his purpose, although he could not avail himself of such an argument without begging the question, which he had certainly begged from the beginning to the end of his speech. It would, indeed, have been otherwise, if he had consulted his own learning, and been guided by his own ingenuity; had he listened to the suggestions of his own mind, rather than to the suggestions of others.

Another authority had been attempted to be brought to bear upon the question, one which he should value more than all royal authorities it was the great and revered authority of Mr. Fox, whose loss he lamented on all occasions, but on none more than on the present, when the foundations of the constitution were the subject of discussion. If that illustrious person were present, no little man—the hon. baronet, and himself, and all of them were little men compared to Mr. Foxy therefore he could mean no disrespect—no little man could obtrude his own crude notions on such a subject. His hon. friend could not have ventured to make such a speech in Mr. Fox's hearing, and if he had, it would not have existed a single minute before he would have exposed its fallacy in a few sentences. He grieved that his authority had been brought forward as having once sanctioned what every one knew he had never acted upon. The hon. baronet inferred Mr. Fox's assent to the principle of universal suffrage, from the circumstance of his having put his name as chairman to certain resolutions. In the name of all chairmen of public meetings he protested against this doctrine. Every chairman, as matter of courtesy as well as duty, authenticated the resolutions of a meeting over which he presided, and by so doing only said, "I attest this to have been the sense of the meeting." Where was the hon. baronet's principle of holding a president responsible, to end? The Speaker, whom he addressed, was an instance. It might as well be said that he gave his assent to every bill which passed the House while he sat in the chair. Gould it be supposed that he had considered and approved all the votes and resolutions, to which he necessarily signed his name? As well might it be said that he approved all he was doomed to hear, or that he never listened to speeches with weariness and desire of repose, as that he assented to all he signed.

This reminded him to hasten to a conclusion; but really he must say that so many errors and mistakes were to be found in his honourable friend's speech, that he could not help applying the old proverb, "he could not see the trees for the wood." His hon. friend, in arguing for universal suffrage, had protested against the inference that it would give rise to tumult and confusion;" for," said he, "look to Westminster, which is the only place in the country which chooses its members according to the constitution." He (Mr. Brougham) differed from those who thought that the complete tranquillity of an election was an object so much to be desired, or that it was desirable that persons, instead of offering themselves to the constituents, should be sought out and, as it were, compelled to serve. He however, was one of those who tendered the tribute of their applause to the electors of Westminster for the motives of their conduct generally, in defeating the government influence and more especially for their humane and manly behaviour in the last election of the noble lord, after his expulsion from that Houses. He confined his praise, however, entirely to the motive which he believed influenced them in that proceeding, and which was their resentment at the infamous sentence, including the punishment of the pillory, which the court of King's Bench had passed upon him, and but for which sentence the noble lord would probably not have been reelected. He dissented, however, from the Westminster doctrine, that the silent manner of election gave a greater security for collecting the popular will. One security it certainly was calculated to give—a security to some few electors who chose to monopolize the nomination of members, and could not better keep this operation in their own hands than by holding it out that all who proposed themselves were by that very act disqualified from being chosen" The hon. baronet, however, had made a double mistake in this part of the subject. He had appeared to assume as a fact, that in Westminster the principle of universal suffrage was established, and that no other place enjoyed the same advantage. Now he must deny both the one statement and the other. He denied that there was any thing like universal suffrage in Westminster, or that Westminster enjoyed any advantages which were not equally enjoyed by many other large constituent bodies. The elective franchise was confined in Westminster to inhabitant-householders, an extension of suffrage certainly producing 10,000 voters, a number which some might think erred as much in excess as that in Old Sarum did by its poverty, but to which he had no objection, and in which he saw no danger of turbulence, or those other evils generally apprehended from such causes.—The old established manner of election in all times was, that they should be attended with some bustle and even confusion. No harm ever came of such proceedings. They did much good to the constitution; they kept up popular spirit, and had salutary effects upon the minds of bad rulers. He, for one, had no desire to see the accustomed fori strepitus Superseded by the flat and spiritless tameness of a vestry meeting; which the doctors of the new school had pronounced to be the perfection of election proceedings. Therefore he must take leave to say, that the advocates of annual elections with universal suffrage, chose an unlucky topic of defence when they rested it upon the tendency of their scheme to deprive electors of every thing animating and interesting, and cheering—and to substitute for the zeal and enthusiasm which should attend the exercise of a high franchise by assembled freemen, the decorum and dulness of an academical sitting to discuss metaphysics, or a parish meeting to fix a rate. But, though he did not think that there were such dangers of tumult and confusion from universal suffrage as many apprehended, yet he thought the arguments adduced from the case of Westminster were rather defective, for it might well happen that householders should be tranquil in the place which was the seat of government, without its being certain that all persons elsewhere, householders or not, would be equally so.

He now came to the substance of the proposition made by the hon. baronet, and he should only observe on an inconsistency or two as he did not wish to fatigue the House by going into the detail. The hon. baronet proposed that the suffrage should be extended to all, because no person could be consistently excluded from a share in framing the laws which he was called upon to obey. He admitted that in rigourous consistency this was true; but really in his desire for parliamentary reform he (Mr. Brougham) wished to have a line drawn somewhere. If the right of voting was extended to the payers of direct taxes, or to householders only, or to the voters proposed by Mr. Grey in 1797, a line was drawn, and a distinction made;—but the hon. batonet seemed to think that no line should be drawn, as it would have an appearance of inconsistency. "For instance", said the hon. baronet, "if a master tradesman has a right to vote, why should not a journeyman have an equal right; and if you allow it to him why should not a labourer; why, in fact. Should not all classes of persons be upon an equal footing in this essential respect?" If he even admitted this, he should turn round on his hon. friend and say, "you also draw a line, but on a lower scale; you say all have an equal right to vote, and yet let me inquire on what grounds you exclude persons under 21 years of age Many great things had been done by persons under the age of 21. Many excellent orations had been delivered in that House by minors. A noble friend of his (lord Milton) made an admirable speech on the Slave trade before he had reached that age. Sir Isaac Newton had before that period of life made some of his most brilliant discoveries in the mathematics. Mr. Fox had in that House signalised his powers—powers not falling into sudden decay, as too often happened after a premature disclosure, but sustaining by their ripeness all the brilliant promise of their first expansion—before he arrived at such an age as qualified a man to vote, according to the hon. baronet's doctrine. Numberless individuals under twenty-one years of age had devoted their lives and their fortunes to the country's service, and yet the honourable baronet, who did not wish to make any distinction, lest he should be charged with inconsistency, would, by his motion, exclude a set of persons whom he knew to be equally deserving of liberty with the rest of mankind. And yet only let the House mark how marvellously inconsistent he was all the while, in the application of his principles. For the wit of man could devise no reason for universal suffrage according to the hon. baronet's construction of the word, except the supposed injustice of depriving any man who supported the state by his purse or his person of his share in choosing those who should tax and govern him.

When he considered this point, arguments poured in upon him from all points of the compass in such a manner that he found it difficult to select from them. He could not, however, overlook the injustice which his hon. friend was about to do to so many persons of great importance though of tender years. The hon. baronet said, that all who supported the country had a right to a share of its freedom, but these infants contributed by their purse and defended by their persons the liberties of the country, and yet the hon. baronet had the cruelty to deprive them of any share of the blessings which he was about to bestow on all other classes of society. Though of much service to the state, they were to have no power to oppose a tax or a standing army, though they were to pay for both, and were occasionally also liable to serve compulsorily in the latter. By this limitation to persons above the age of 21, an irreparable injustice would thus be done to all the infants of the nation Why, too, was another large class to be excluded, amiable in their dispositions, of quick faculties, of lively perceptions, and who, though sometimes apt to pervert the benefits of an education but lately extended to them, and like many theorists prone to judge rashly on matters of which they knew little, to fancy because they knew more than they used to do, that they knew every thing, and to conclude that no one else knew anything, yet could not be declared unfit for the elective-franchise in the state of which they were in every respect the ornament, and in one sense the prop—he meant females. From this charge of inconsistency there was one great authority who was exempt—he meant Mr. Bentham. He had the greatest respect for that gentleman. There existed not a more honest or ingenuous mind than he possessed. He knew no man who had passed a more honourable and useful life. Removed from the turmoil of active life, voluntarily abandoning both the emoluments and the power which it held out to dazzle ambitious and worldly minds; he had passed his days in the investigation of the most important truths, and had reached a truly venerable, although he hoped not an extreme old age. To him he meant not to impute either inadequate information, or insufficient industry, or defective sagacity. But he hoped he should not be deemed disrespectful towards Mr. Bentham if he said that his plan of parliamentary reform showed that he had dealt more with books than with men. He agreed with his hon. friend, the member for Arundel (Sir S. Romilly), who looked up to Mr. Bentham with the almost filial reverence of a pupil for his tutor, in wishing that he had never written that work. But Mr. Bentham was a real advocate for universal suffrage. He was a far more sturdy, an infinitely more consistent reformer than the hon. baronet, as he gave votes not only to all men, but to all women also. He drew no line at all; he weighed not with practical nicety the claims of different classes; he recollected that his principle was universal he tossed away the rule and the scale altogether, and without restriction, let in all—young or old, men or women, sane or insane, all must vote—all must have a voice in elect- ing their representatives. He did not even sanction the exceptions which the hon. baronet seemed inclined to admit with respect to persons of an unsound mind. The veteran reformer (major Cartwright) had lately favoured the world with a plan of suffrage, illustrated by plates, where balloting boxes, ball trays, stands, &c. &c. in most accurate array, met the eager gaze of the much edified inquirer. Now Mr. Bentham was the patron of the ballot, and his doctrine was, that all who can ballot may enjoy the elective franchise. The moment a person of either sex was able to put a pellet into a box, no matter whether he were insane, and had one of the keepers of a mad-house to guide him, still Mr. Bentham said, that though he did not support the utility of allowing idiots or mad persons to vote, for their own sakes, yet, rather than make any distinction, he would allow them, as they could not do any harm, and the unbending consistency might do some good. Mr. Bentham had such an invincible objection to lines of every description, that he could not admit of one being drawn even at the gates of Bedlam. It was not necessary for him to controvert doctrines of this nature, but they were certainly consistent with each other, and he did not think himself uncharitable in saying that some of the principles promulgated in that House were nearly as chimerical and visionary, without being at all consistent.

He had forgot to mention, in reference to the authority of Mr. Fox on this subject, a saying of the late Mr. Burke, who, when he saw the name of Mr. Fox signed as chairman to the resolutions of the Westminster meeting already alluded to, observed to him, in jest (so well known was it that Mr. Fox did not favour those sentiments)," I see, at last, you have got to universal suffrage, and annual parliaments, but you will soon be beat by the oft'ner-if-need-be-ans," alluding to the words, "once a year or oftener if need be," in the statute of Edward 3rd, so much cited by the radical gentlemen. It was melancholy to know the serious truth which this pleasantry implied, that the only result of yielding to the desire of conciliating popular favour, by proposing measures which discretion did not approve, was that many would be ready to outbid for that applause by still more extravagant concessions, and the highest bidder would be not the most honest and the most enlightened, but the most servile and submissive, the most mad or dishonest. He agreed with the great man te whom he had just adverted, that it was necessary to make a stand against such wild and chimerical notions; it was the duty of parliament to expose and reprobate them—to try them by its own better judgment—and to exercise with regard to them its own honest and enlightened conscience. To despise popular opinion was a short-sighted policy, even if it were justifiable in point of duty. The sentiments, the desires of the people deserved every degree of respectful attention from their representatives; but the legislative must exercise its own judgment; and to abandon that was a gross folly, a greater breach of duty, than even the most entire disregard of the public voice. This abdication of their proper functions was, however, incomparably more criminal if done with a view to court popular favour at the expense of sincere and deliberate conviction; it was also beyond all question a still more short-sighted delusion to fancy that such a base stratagem could succeed. The adoption of universal suffrage might for a moment lift one unworthy or obscure individual to popularity; another less scrupulous or more consistent would soon rise over his head by admitting persons under one-and-twenty,^* or paupers, or women, or lunatics. The prize when thus put up to be bid for, would next be sought by adopting the ballot—yet all would not do; the "oft ner-if-need-be-ans" would still start up and carry the day—their existence was eternal; there was no pitch too high, no base note too low for them; they knew of no obstacle, hardly of any difficulty; their only rule in the competition was, to go beyond the last man who had offered; and as the degrees of human folly are infinite in all directions, this unworthy rivalry in pandering for the vices or the craziness of the multitude had no limits.

He turned away from it with disgust, and not without some compassion for such as had engaged in it. For of this he was well assured, that when popularity was thus sought after, it lost all the lustre which made it so precious a possession to honourable minds. When it was to be bid for, not in the sterling coin of pure conduct, enlightened views, statesmanlike accomplishments, which few men held a large stock of—but in the base dross of subverviency and compliance and presence and cant, which every one might have without stint, and the most unprincipled alone would use—then the people were degraded by being so courted and their favour became a worthless, nay a debasing enjoyment; a boon as fleeting as it was vile. If his own opinions had at all changed on the important subject of this debate, it was at least to be ascribed to no personal interest, for the differences which prevailed between him and the dispensers of power were too wide and too radical to leave any possibility that his approach to it could be at all facilitated by this partial surrender of an opinion which he once entertained. He was still an advocate for parliamentary reform to far too great an extent to make what he had given up of any consequence. Projects of ambition he could not, then, well be accused of in avowing the inconsiderable change which his sentiments had undergone. That darling popularity which he was so often charged with seeking, he could as little be supposed to effect, by thus declaring his honest conviction. He now, though he did not strongly object to annual parliaments, was of opinion that triennial ones would be preferable, and he was disposed to think that an extension of the right of suffrage to all payers of direct taxes was too large. This opinion was formed conscientiously, and not without laborious investigation. His reasons for preferring a more limited franchise and for choosing another principle of limitation, he had already glanced at. They were drawn from a conviction that the inclusion of persons paying direct taxes and the exclusion of those who paid indirect imposts, was liable to the charge of inconsistency in principle; that consequences, absurd in reasoning, and dangerous in practice would result from making the franchises depend on any particular mode of contribution to the public revenue; and that a better method of fixing the qualification might be obtained from the amount and kind of property possessed. But he again desired it to be understood, that although he might now prefer triennial parliaments, he by no means deemed the doctrine of annual elections so absurd in itself or so fatal to the constitution as by many they were represented; on the contrary, they were recommended by many considerations; and in what he had that night said of their ill-advised advocates, he Only wished to show, that they had chosen the very worst and most untenable grounds of defence for them. As for universal suffrage, or the doctrine which severed the elective franchise altogether from property, he begged leave to observe that he never had at any time held it as less than the utter destruction of the constitution; he need not add that he had never given it the slightest countenance or support.

^* A few days after this, Mr. Hunt made affidavit, that the age of 18 was the true term.

He should now conclude by referring to some of the hon. baronet's remarks on the scheme of government framed by our ancestors at the Revolution. Here the hon. baronet had not only exhausted his own ingenuity against that much hated, because Whig arrangement, but in the austerity of his criticism, had called in aid the observation of a late member for Yorkshire, who, in speaking of the Bill of Rights, had described it, in language drawn from the kind of place where his oration was delivered, as a bill of fare without a dinner. The hon. baronet regarded it as full of promise, but as attended with no performance. To him it appeared that the overthrow of an arbitrary government and a bigotted church was in itself a great good, and made an excellent and a substantial first part in the banquet of liberty. The patriots of that day, too, recorded their reasons for banishing James 2nd, with a view of deterring future kings from the repetition of similar enormities. They never, any more than their illustrious predecessors, who had hazarded their all for the sake of liberty, civil and religious, aimed at improving the constitution by indulging the senseless wishes of a multitude, after objects which, if they were to attain to morrow, they would no longer consider of any value. Much they had done for their country; vast was the load of gratitude which we owed them, both the statesmen who brought about the Revolution, and the great, though sometimes mistaken, men, who had first turned the torrent of arbitrary power, and taught tyrants that resistance was a possible event, when it became a sacred duty. They had not pretended, however, to complete every thing at once; they were not of the school which will try nothing unless they can do all by a stroke of the pen—whose maxim is all or nothing—who strike out constitutions at a heat—the illustrious authors of the Revolution were satisfied to do speedily whatever was Manifestly necessary and plainly safe. Caution' required that something should be left to time, and they were modest enough to think that something might be done by the wisdom of after ages Experience seemed to them of some value, and they wished to profit by frequent trials, and by feeling their way as they proceeded along. To create new systems in a hurry they deemed neither suited to the difficulty and magnitude of the work, nor to the limited nature of men. They knew well that man and nature, or rather its great parent, must proceed by very different steps; and that while the latter, according to lord Bacon's beautiful observation, engenders at once the whole plant, so that the rudiments of each part are to be formed in the germ, from whence the light, the air, the shower expands and educates the perfect vegetable; finite beings must be content to add things to each other, and go on by successive experiments, step by step, until through many trials and many failures they reach something approaching to the object of their wishes. The presumptuous ignorance; the rashness unchecked by information, which distinguished many in the present day, led to the expression of a vain contempt for men of better times, whose merits were far beyond the comprehensions that pretended to undervalue them. For his own part, he thought the great men alluded to had only increased their claims to the admiration and gratitude of all posterity, by resting satisfied with having placed the country in the sure road to improvement, and to the attainment of a pure constitution, instead of attempting things beyond the reach of human imperfection, and only to be dreamt of by the blindness of ignorant presumption. He had said so much in justice to those benefactors of their country; and he should conclude by pressing on the House a maxim to be gathered from their example—and which comprised his own creed upon reform generally—that the empiric who pretended at once to eradicate every evil in the system, and the flatterer who affected to believe that no change at all was wanting, were equally dangerous guides in state affairs, and that the one was as incapable of effecting a salutary reform as the other.

The above is an imperfect report of a speech, which was listened to by both sides of the House, with the deepest attention.

professed himself a step-by-step reformer, and thought some good might be attained by gradual measures, which could not be expected from one which excited so much opposition as that now before the House.

said, that as there were many propositions in the Resolutions before them which he could not negative, he rose to move the order of the day, and in doing this he should say a few words, which he had been unwilling to offer immediately after the speech of the hon. and learned gentleman, from whom he differed in some points, but it was so gratifying to find such an ally, that he was sorry to manifest his contrariety of opinion. To more moderate propositions of reform this had been his objection, that if those plans were consented to they would be made the stepping stones to others, which they now pretty generally joined to deprecate and abhor. On so grave a subject it was not enough to look to details; he had a right to demand on what principle the proposition was founded. It began by assuming it as admitted, that the present system was faulty. There were two modes of reform—to bring back the constitution to its former principles, or to reconstruct it on new and improved principles. If it were meant to carry back the constitution to its condition in former times, he would say "name your period:"—if to re-construct it, "define your principle." But a naked proposition was presented to them, which assumed one or the other mode of reform, but which of the two they were not told. The hon. baronet had indeed, though he was not specific in his assertions, laboured to persuade them that the plan he proposed was accordant to the ancient constitution. In all that related to antiquarian research, he had been so admirably and so completely answered by the hon. and learned gentleman, that he (Mr. Canning) would not weaken the arguments by repetition. But he would say, that when the hon. baronet assumed that the constitution was now defective, it was incumbent on him to show at what period, it had produced more good in effect. If this period could not be shown, they were set loose in the wide sea of theories but before he ventured on that voyage, he would ask the question whether the present system was not a good one? What interest was not actually as well as virtually represented in that House? What body of men whose claims were not discussed with patience and attention, and with skill and knowledge, which he knew not what other process could collect? But it was said by the hon. baronet, that the will of the people did not always exercise direct influence on their deliberations. He admitted the fact, but he contended that government was not a matter of will; all plans for government, all the ties by which monarchy was fettered, all the contrivances by which democracy was brought to act in the constitution, were so many contrivances to prevent the daily, hourly, direct operation of will, upon matters which are subjects only for deliberation. If, to our misfortune, we had found a popular assembly existing under the direct control of the people, forced to obey its will, and liable to be dismissed by its authority, as the hon. baronet seemed to wish to see it, it would have been the duty of wise legislators to diminish that overbearing influence, and to substitute in its place a deliberative freedom. There had been another plan proposed in the present session, merely to shorten the duration of parliaments, which would indisputably aggravate all the evils which were now complained of, by giving the representative of close boroughs, or those sent by individuals, a still greater superiority in security, and consequently in power, over those who had to incur the trouble and expense of popular elections. The present plan of reform was a pretended revertence to the old constitution. He was grateful to the hon. baronet for having fairly stated his views;—for having at length brought under their notice in a tangible shape, a subject which had been much talked of, but the objects of which had not been fully defined until now. He apprehended no danger from the disclosure of any specific plan; that danger could only arise from vague declamations, and idle references to periods of history which afforded no points of comparison with the state of things in more modern times. The hon. baronet said, that the House did not now sufficiently represent the people. If this only meant, that the whole force and authority of the people was not vested in and exercised by that House, he admitted it. The constitution was a monarchy controlled by two houses of parliament; but if every 4,000 men in the country could point to their delegate, the organ of their will, and acting under their immediate control, he should be glad to know what room their would be for any other power in the state? If the House of Commons were the genuine, undoubted representatives of the popular will, and if that will, and not reason, were the proper rule of government, the King and Lord" must necessarily be considered as nuisances and excrescences. They might tolerate the king for a time, but it would be, as had been said, by allowing him to be "the first citizen of a free people." The lords also might be tolerated, but not as pare of the legislature. These were not the deductions of mere theory, but were proved to demonstration by that portion of our own eventful history, the year 1648. Let the House look at the last year of the reign of Charles the 1st, and they would find in their own Journals resolutions taken by the long parliament, and containing a correct exposition of the hon. baronet's theory. They would read that it was resolved, in that year,

"1. That the Commons of England in parliament assembled, declare that the people, under God, are the origin of all just government. 2. That the Commons of England, in parliament assembled, being chosen by and representing the nation, have the supreme power in these kingdoms."^* They proceeded to vote that laws enacted by the Commons were therefore binding, though the consent of the Lords and the King were not had thereto—and they followed up their votes, at the distance of a few months, by voting the House of Lords useless, by dethroning the king, and leading him to the scaffold. In those votes of the House of Commons, admitting the principles of the hon. baronet, he defied any one to find a logical inconsistency; and they might take it as a warning how they admitted theoretical principles, from which they could not see the conclusions which might be drawn. Yet all plans of reform went on the assumption, not only that the present system was faulty, but that it was necessary to have such a representation as the long parliament declared itself to be. The reformers who proposed this were speaking of a pure democracy, not of a constitutional monarchy, under which (thank God!) we live—a monarchy limited by law, and controlled by a parliament, not trampled under foot by a House of Commons. The hon. baronet was entitled to thanks for bringing forward his propositions in a tangible shape. It had been argued that such propositions could find no supporters in that House. Here, however, they were. And those who had wished to grant some smaller measures of reform, might judge how likely these proposals were to be put an end to by their concessions. Those who preferred this plan to the constitution as it existed, might support the object of their choice—those who thought with him, that it was not desirable to see this new experiment tried, and that the present system had been proved sufficient for our internal wants and external glory, would join with him in his vote. As he was far from wishing to negative the general truisms of the Resolutions, he should move the other order of the day.

^* Parl. History, Vol. III, p. 1257.

said:—After the very full and ample discussion which this proposition has already received, I call it full and ample, although only two speeches have been delivered, and particularly after the powerful, impressive, and masterly argument of my hon. and learned friend, I am aware it must appear in me both superfluous and presumptuous to offer myself to the attention of the House;—more especially as having heretofore opposed myself to propositions of a more moderate description, it is almost needless for me to state that I intend to resist the motion of to-night. But, Sir, there are one or two topics, upon which I am anxious to say a few words, and the best atonement can make for intruding myself unnecessarily upon your patience, is, to occupy as little time as possible.

I agree entirely with my hon. and learned friend, that there is nothing in the question of parliamentary reform, as it is called, which should, upon any general grounds, preclude enquiry and discussion, and I am anxious to state, that I consider the whole of this subject, the regulations as to who shall be the electors and who the elected, what shall be the right of voting, what the form and manner of election, to be matters as much open to amelioration and amendment as any other part of our laws and constitution—If an evil can be pointed out in the present system of representation—and I am far from denying that evil does exist in that system—and at the same time a remedy can be shown, which, soberly and coolly considered, is likely to remove the evil complained of that remedy I am ready to adopt. The objection, which I have always felt to all the schemes of reformation of parliament which I have ever heard proposed, is, that in my opinion their tendency would be to aggravate, instead of diminishing, all the evils which at present exist, and to generate new vices, which at present have no place in the actual system of our representation. I also agree with my hon. and learned friend, that we ought to use no asperity of language nor cast any ridicule upon those within or without these walls who honestly entertain those opinions, which have been to-night brought forward by the worthy baronet, in favour of annual parliaments and universal suffrage—at the same time, however, that such opinions are allowed that toleration and civility which almost all opinions may claim, we, however, may, I trust, be permitted to deplore and lament their existence. That they do exist to a certain extent, that they are sedulously inculcated into the minds and put into the mouths of the people, may be sufficiently collected from the petitions upon your table.—Those petitions I for one look upon with deep sorrow and regret.—I know very well that the abuse of a right injures the right itself, and I can see nothing in those petitions, nothing in their prayer, nothing in their style and manner, but what tends to bring the sacred right of petitioning into contempt and disregard. When I remember the quarters in which those petitions avowedly originate, and that those who openly promote them, are men of acknowledged good character and of gentlemanly manners and deportment, I cannot but wonder at the intemperance of language, by which these applications to the House are disgraced, and I must venture to ask, whether the advocates of parliamentary reform conceive that any cause can possibly be advanced by wanton and idle contumely, by vulgar and petulant insult I would ask whether ever any claim which had real liberty for its object, whether any contest which has come to a successful termination, and which has been since stamped with the approbation of the virtuous and the wise, ever wore such a character in its outset, ever commenced in such a temper and in such a style? It is also, Sir, not a little derogatory and humiliating to reflect, that all this turmoil of petitioning, that all this demand of ancient legal rights, founded upon the reading of old statutes, upon research into writs, upon the interpretation of documents, is produced and guided by an individual (major Cartwright), who, upon his own showing conceives Brevia Parliamentaria to signify Short Parliaments.^* Now this is really so compleatly, so utterly absurd and ridiculous; this is such a specimen of the degree of information, of the accuracy of research, of the extent of knowledge, upon which these doctrines are founded, that nothing can possibly exceed or go beyond it. What may be the prevailing opinion out of doors upon this subject; what may be the judgment pronounced by the public, I am unable to say; but for myself, and for, those who may agree with me, I do protest against being accused of deserting popular principles, of abandoning the cause of the people, and of opposing myself to the wishes and feelings of my fellow countrymen, because I am unwilling to comply with, or even to treat with much respect, petitions which come from such sources, which rest upon such authorities, and the main allegations of which are built and established upon such foundations.

A few words it was my intention to have said upon the two subjects, namely, Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage, to which the principal part of the worthy baronet's observations have been directed; but the latter topic has been so fully treated by my hon. and learned friend, that I shall not take up the time of the House upon it farther than to say, that it is in itself utterly incredible that it ever could have been the right and possession of the people of this country. It is so entirely discordant and at variance, so utterly alien from all the habits, manners, and institutions of the period, in which it is placed by the worthy baronet, that it may be safely affirmed, that it is impossible that it could then have existed. With regard to the boroughs, the letter of the charters which constitute them, designates for the most part, clearly to the exclusion of the whole body of persons residing within them, a particular description of persons such as burgesses, or freemen, or inhabitants, to whom the right of voting shall belong; and with regard to the counties it is admitted, as it must be by the worthy baronet, that nothing of the nature of universal suffrage can have existed since the act of Henry the 6th, which established the qualification of a freehold, amounting to the yearly value of forty shillings. This act passed, I believe, in the year 1429; so that what we are asked to do by the motion of the worthy baronet is, to go back nearly four hundred years to search amidst ancient writs, records, and rolls of parliament, under the guidance of those who construe brevia parliamentaria, short parliaments, for a state of things which is fancied and conjectured to have then been in existence. It is, I am sure unnecessary for me to say any more upon this point, but upon annual parliaments I am desirous of making a few remarks, because they form a question of somewhat more difficulty, and because even the speech of my hon. and learned friend has given more sanction, than they deserve, to some doctrines, which are abroad upon this part of the subject. In fact, there is here a more plausible appearance of a case, at least I am bound to think so, because I perceive that it misleads men of sounder minds and of better abilities; but it is no more than an appearance, which fades away and vanishes upon no very deep research, nor very laborious and close investigation. Parliaments, annually holden, never were the actual constitution of this country; never in practice the constitution. True it is, that they ought to have been so; true it is, that it was so enacted by the statute of Edward the 3rd (4 Edw. 3, c. 14); but this statute had the fate of all laws which only lay down a principle or establish a regulation, without providing any means, which shall resolve the principle into practice, or ensure the observation of the rule. This statute was disregarded almost as soon as it was enacted. It passed in the 4th year of Edward the 3rd, and in the face of its provisions no parliament was held either in the sixth or seventh year of the same king; and during the remainder of his reign there were, if I am correct, no less than twenty-one years without the calling or holding of a parliament. The reason of this is very clear, and perfectly well known. It was this, that in those days the crown enjoyed a very large revenue, entirely independant of parliament: it possessed a very large and extensive landed estate; it enjoyed great profits as feudal superior; it had been in the habit of levying, whether legally or not, great custom duties, commonly called in the language of that day, tonnage and poundage; from these sources it administered the ordinary government of the country, and therefore it was unnecessary to call a parliament, except in cases of great necessity or extraordinary emergency; and this famous statute of Edward the 3rd was never therefore really carried into effect until the Revolution, when almost the whole independant revenue of the Crown having dropped from it at different times, first one portion and then another, the supplies necessary for the carrying on the government of the country came to be voted annually by parliament, and for that purpose it became necessary that parliament should annually meet. I am aware, Sir, that these common place details must be fatiguing and wearisome to the House; they are the mere elements and rudiments of the constitution, but they appear to me to be called for by the language and doctrines of a time, when theories and notions, founded upon ignorance and not upon knowledge, are so confidently put forward as the undoubted rights of the people, and the ancient constitution of the country.

^* See p. 629 of the present Volume.

So much for parliaments annually holden—but for parliaments annually chosen, they were never dreamt of in those days. The statute of Edward the 3rd never received such an interpretation, and that it never did, the best and most convincing proof is to be drawn from the 16th of Charles the 1st, c. 1, commonly called the Triennial bill—a statute which may afford to parliamentary reformers another salutary warning and admonition, drawn from the same times, to which my right hon. friend opposite (Mr. Canning) has already with the same view referred. It stands the first act of that parliament; the seventh act of the same session is that celebrated law, which taking from the Crown the power of adjourning proroguing or dissolving, led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a military despotism. This act, it must be recollected, was passed by those, who, though they were afterwards led or urged into culpable excesses, were men of very great talents, of as great talents as ever adorned this or any other country; above all, they were deeply learned in the laws and constitution of England; and how do they state in the preamble of this statute the law and usage upon this subject? They say, "whereas by the laws and statutes of this realm, the parliament ought to be holden at least once every year." Now, Sir, if they had thought that the statute of Edward the 3rd demanded an annual election, can it be conceived that they would not have stated and asserted that right, especially as it cannot be said of them, as it may of others in more ancient times, that they knew no difference between the holding and the electing a parliament, that every parliament was of course a new one, and involved the necessity of a fresh election, because they who lived in the reign of Charles the 1st, were well aware, that parliaments had been continually adjourned and prorogued from time to time. They knew very well that one of the parliaments of Edward the 6th had sat five, and one of Elizabeth's eleven years; but with this knowledge, what, after this preamble, do they proceed to enact? Do they provide for an annual election of parliament? No; they do not even provide for an annual meeting of parliament; they content themselves with securing that parliament shall not be intermitted for three years; they ordain, that if within three years from the last day of the last holden parliament the king shall not summon another, means shall be taken to call a parliament without his intervention, and they then proceed to enact, that if the king shall by prorogation or adjournment continue a parliament for more than three years, but without meeting then for dispatch of business, the same steps shall be taken as if no parliament were in existence at all. But does not this enactment distinctly recognise the power of proroguing, &c. in the Crown, and does the worthy baronet think that these men were not aware of the statute of Edward the 3rd? Does he conceive they did not understand it as well as he does? Does he suppose that if prorogations, &c. had been illegal and contrary to the statute law of the realm, they would have recognised and sanctioned them in this clear and indisputable manner? Upon the whole, Sir, I mean distinctly to state, that if we are to take the ancient constitution of the country for our guide,—if it is to the old laws, usages, and practices, we are called upon to revert, they will not lead us back to parliaments annually chosen or annually holden; they will lead us back to an independant revenue in the Crown, and to parliaments occasionally summoned according to the necessities of the Crown and the emergencies of the state. This was the ancient system of this country—a system which, during the intermission of parliament, left to the subject, in case of grievance or oppression, no redress except in the last and extreme recourse of resistance. All legal means of complaint or remedy depended solely upon the accident of the Crown being reduced to the necessity of convening a parliament, a necessity which might be avoided by the frugality of a cautious sovereign, or broken through by the violence of an unscrupulous despot. As to the proposition of the worthy baronet, it is a romance, a fancy, a dream, which has as little foundation in precedent and example, as it has in sense and reason.

Sir, I have no doubt that the worthy baronet is sincere in the cause which he is pursuing. I have no doubt that he believes that his scheme is practicable, and that, if adopted, it would redound to his own honour and to the advantage of his country. There are, however, others, who hold these opinions, for whom I can not say so much; because there are, amongst them, men of considerable abilities, men capable of long views and of deep designs, men of great political knowledge and of much practical experience, who observe the course of events and the progress of opinions; for such men I must say, that I want no other evidence of their insincerity, no stronger proof of their entertaining other and ulterior designs, than their profession and maintenance of these wild and idle, but popular opinions. They know them to be impracticable, as well as we do; but they are ready to use them as the means and instruments of battering the whole fabric of our government and society into a heap of ruins, over which they hope to climb into supreme power and unrestrained domination. That these notions are entirely wild and visionary, few will be prepared to dispute; but I beg leave to caution gentlemen against conceiving that their wildness and inconsistency in any degree divests them of a formidable and dangerous character. Amidst the many warning maxims which may be drawn from that great repository of woeful experience, the French revolution, we have it upon the authority of one,^* who was himself deeply engaged, and who, I fear, cannot be excused from much of the guilt of those times, that he had observed, during the whole course of those convulsions, that invariably that which was most absurd and inconclusive in reasoning, led to every thing most ferocious, sanguinary, and horrible in action.

^* "C'est presque toujours ce qui étoit absurde, qui nous a conduits é ce qui étoit horrible." Memoires sur la Revolution, par D. J. Garat: Avertissement, p. 6.

said, he was a decided enemy to the plan of reform proposed, but he vindicated the views of the radical reformers, many of whom he believed to be conscientious and honest men. He observed, that the reasoning of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Canning) would have precluded all reform, moral, religious, or political, and referred to the petition presented by Mr. Grey in 1793, as indisputably proving the necessity of a reform. He was glad that this subject had been again brought forward, because every new discussion was one more step to the attainment of reform; not indeed the reform proposed by the hon. baronet, but rational and discreet reform.

, in reply, complimented the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Canning) upon the openness and candour with which he had met the question. The right hon. gentleman had indeed been peculiarly unfortunate in referring, for historical illustration, to the early proceedings of the long parliament of Charles 1st and seemed to have forgotten, that the arbitrary measures then adopted, were owing to the abandonment of the system which was now recommended. If parliaments had then been annual, the long parliament would never have existed, nor perhaps would any of the unhappy consequences have resulted, which the right hon. gentleman, equally with himself, deplored. However, the course taken by the right hon. gentleman was fair and open; he said that no evil existed, and of course no remedy was necessary; and the matter was at issue upon that ground, between the right hon. gentleman and the majority of the nation.

But however fair was the proceeding of the right hon. gentleman, the open and avowed enemy of reform, nothing could be more disingenuous and unfair, than the course pursued by the hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. Brougham), the professed friend of reform, whose eloquence might indeed be amusing, but was certainly very far from being convincing. His speech was a sort of salmagundi of sarcasm, panegyric, and verbosity, of exaggeration and misrepresentation, in which the words were more abundant than the ideas, the irony more conspicuous than the argument. It was a great mistake in the hon. and learned gentle- man, to suppose that he (sir F.) had ever been otherwise than a defender of the principle of the most extended suffrage. It was true, that he had proposed and defended a more limited suffrage than he now offered to the consideration of the House. Convinced as he was, that a principle unyielding and unbending, that would hear no reason, or take into account the feelings of others, became thereby impracticable, however correct in argument, he had always been willing, as he still was, to stop short of the utmost extent to which the principle might be carried, but he was no new convert to the truth of the principle itself. The hon. and learned gentleman had also taken great pains to misrepresent the inferences which were drawn from the kings Speeches, which formed part of the resolutions then under consideration. He had been either so dull in apprehension, or so expert in misstatement, as to infer that the kings' speeches were employed as legal authorities; whereas nothing could be more plain, than that they were introduced as confessions of a supposed adverse party, not likely to make too great concessions to the principles maintained. The hon. and learned gentleman, in disputing the sincerity of speeches from the throne, had represented the kings of England either as knaves or fools. If he made them out to be insincere, he would reflect discredit on the kings themselves, but not on the principles which they and their ministers thought it their interest to avow; and the hon. and learned gentleman ought to be aware, that it was the truth of the principles, and not the sincerity of the kings, which affected the present argument. The hon. and learned gentleman had also commented on the words "nullus liber homo," in Magna Charta, and had contended, that because the word "liber" was there, the charter was of no avail to us in this question; and that to have been valuable to us in argument, the words ought to have been "nullus homo." In fact, to us it was so; since at this time there were no villains, and the hon. and learned gentleman would not venture to say, that any man was not "liber homo." Besides, the hon. and learned gentleman appeared to be entirely ignorant what the state of villanage was in this country. The villain was much nearer to the state of "liber homo," than the hon. and learned gentleman seemed to imagine: he was entitled to the protection of law; he had his ar- ticle in Magna Charta; and nothing could be more idle than to represent him to have been in the condition of a West Indian slave. The present copyholder was his successor; and between the property of a copyholder and that of a freeholder, there was little more than a technical difference. But be this as it might, the hon. and learned gentleman would not contend, that at present there were any persons in the state of villianage; and therefore, if in ancient times every man, not a villain, was entitled to suffrage, it was not too much to say that every man now was. The hon. and learned gentleman, in his new zeal for whiggism, had bestowed great praise upon the Revolution, and even on the Septennial act. He forgot that all that was obtained at the Revolution was a declaration, which had proved altogether as inefficient as Magna Charta, and the subsequent act, for better securing the rights and liberties of the subject. The act of Settlement had provided, that England should be engaged in no war for foreign dominions; that all business, properly cognizable in the privy council, should be transacted there, and that all resolutions taken thereupon, should be signed by the persons who advised or consented to the same—that no foreigner should hold an office, civil or military—and that no placeman or pensioner should have a seat in this House. In spite of all this, we were now loaded with hundreds of millions of debt, incurred in contending not only for the foreign dominions of the king, but for the dominions of foreign kings—the business which was cognizable, and ought to be transacted in the privy council, which the constitution had provided for the security of the subject, was carried on covertly and irresponsibly by a junto, in an unconstitutional new-fangled cabinet, made on the model first framed by the atrocious contrivers of the sanguinary scenes of St. Bartholomew's day in France—Germans have had the command of English districts—and the House of Commons was notoriously crowded with placemen and pensioners. In short, all the wholesome provisions which had been made for the protection of the people, had been violated, set at nought, and buried in the corruption of a House of Commons, neglecting the voice, and not regarding the interests of the people.

The hon. and learned gentleman, whilst he professed himself friendly to reform, had, at the same time, attempted to render ridiculous the ablest advocate which reform had ever found—the illustrious and unrivalled Bentham. It was in vain, however, for the hon. and learned gentleman to attempt, by stale jokes and misapplied sarcasm, to undervalue the efforts of a mind the most comprehensive, informed, accurate, acute, and philosophical, that had perhaps in any time or in any country been applied to the subject of legislation, and which, fortunately for mankind, had been brought to bear upon reform, the most important of all political subjects. The abilities of Bentham, the hon. and learned gentleman could not dispute—his disinterestedness he could not deny—his benevolence he could not but admire—and his unremitted labours he would do well to respect, and not attempt to disparage. The conviction of such a mind, after mature investigation, overcoming preconceived prejudice, could not be represented as the result of wild and visionary speculation: and the zealous and honest adherents of the cause of reform might be well contented to rest the question on the foundations, broad and deep, upon which Bentham had placed it. The hon. and learned gentleman, therefore, unless he found him self competent at least to attempt to answer the reasons of Bentham, ought, for his own sake, to be more cautious how he endeavoured to misrepresent those reasons, or to effect, by misstatement, what he was unable to accomplish by argument.

It was in vain to reason with the hon. gentleman who spoke last but one (Mr. Lamb), as his imagination seemed to conjure up dangers as unsubstantial as those of children frightened at their own ideas of ghosts and hobgoblins: but as to the statement which the hon. gentleman had made, that parliaments had never been annually elected and held, it was altogether erroneous, it being a fact proved by writs, returns, and records, still extant, that parliaments were elected and held annually, or more frequently, from the 22nd year of Edward the 1st, to the time of the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, with few exceptions, which might generally be accounted for from temporary circumstances. Notwithstanding the prorogations mentioned by the hon. gentleman (which indeed were not denied, and did not affect the question) no parliament lasted so long as a year, till the 23rd year of Henry the 6th: it was not unusual to have two or three new parliaments in one and the same year, and there were instances of a still greater number; and, therefore, if the vote of this night depended on the fact of annual or more frequent parliaments having ever been the practice of the English government, he should rest perfectly satisfied, and be confident of obtaining the vote by that criterion. The hon. gentleman, whilst he arrogated to himself superior knowledge of history, had only shown how little he was acquainted with it, and whilst he betrayed his little acquaintance with a subject so material to the question, he had attempted to undervalue the labours of his (sir F.'s) worthy friend, major Cartwright, because forsooth he had misconstrued three words of law Latin—a language which the worthy major having been bred to the. Sea service, never pretended to have learned; and which (whether he knew it or not) was quite immaterial to the question. In fact, however, this apparent disparagement was a compliment paid to the major by the hon. gentleman, who showed his eagerness to cavil at a trifle, the major's arguments not being easily controverted, though his scholarship might be disputed.

He was happy to find that the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Canning) was gratified by the question having been brought forward so distinctly as it was in the Resolutions now proposed. He trusted that it would prove equally gratifying to the people. At all events, he had, to the utmost of his power, performed his duty to the country. That some change in the system of representation was necessary, was, he believed, pretty generally admitted; and he had no doubt that the impression would become still more extensive, and that the time would come, when all candid men of all parties would call for reform, although he could not hope to make a convert of the right hon. gentleman, who was too well satisfied with the state of things under which he flourished. Corruption in his eyes wore no deformity; he addressed her as a lover addressed his mistress; he saw no defects—what others thought blemishes, he considered as beauties—he seemed to say,

"I read thee over with a lover's eye,

Thou hast no faults, or I no fault can spy;

Thou art all beauty, or all blindness I."

As to the danger to be apprehended from the exercise of what was called universal suffrage, he could see no founda- tion for it, unless it could be supposed that all the people would go mad when they became tree; and would abuse their liberties, for the purpose of destroying their own happiness.

The question being put, "That the order of the day be now read," the House divided:

Sir F. Burdett and lord Cochrane were appointed tellers for the Noes.

Lord Cochrane presented a Petition from William Cobbett, praying for annual parliaments and universal suffrage. After the clerk had read through the greater part of it, Mr. Fazakerley rose and moved that the House he counted, when there not being forty members present, an adjournment took place.