to delight. This phrafe is fo new, and fo peculiar to our author, that it deferves to be written upon his tomb. We have heard of "tyranny with a mischief, flavery and bondage with a mischief," and they have been denounced by God against wicked and perverse nations, as mifchiefs comprehending all that is moft to be abhorred and dreaded in the world. But Filmer informs us, that liberty, which all wife and good men have in all ages efteemed to be the most valuable and glorious privilege of mankind, is "a mischief." If he deferve credit, Mofes, Joshua, Gideon, Samfon, and Samuel, with others like them, wer enemies to their country, in depriving the people of the advantages they enjoyed under the paternal care of Pharaoh, Adonibezek, Eglon, Jabin, and other kings of the neighbouring nations, and reftoring them to that "liberty with a mifchief," which he had promised to them. The Ifraelites were happy under the power of tyrants, whose proclamations were laws; and they ought to have been thankful to God for that condition, and not for the deliverances he wrought by the hands of his fervants. Subjection to the will of a man is happiness, liberty is a "mifchief." But this is fo abominably wicked and deteftable, that it can deferve no answer.

SECT. XLIV.

No people, that is not free, can fubftitute delegates.

HOW full foever the power of any person or people may be, he or they are obliged to give only fo much to their delegates,

delegates, as feems convenient to themselves, or conducing to the ends they defire to attain; but the delegate can have rone, except what is conferred upon him by his principal. If therefore the knights, citizens, and burgeffes, fent by the people of England to ferve in parliament, have á power, it must be more perfectly and fully in those that send them. But (as was proved in the laft fection) proclamations, and other fignifications of the king's pleasure, are not laws to us. They are to be regulated by the law, not the law by them. They are to be confidered only fo far as they are conformable to the law, from which they receive all the strength that is in them, and can confer none upon it. We know no laws but our own ftatutes, and those immemorial cuftoms established by the consent of the nation; which may be, and often are, changed by us. The legislative power therefore, that is exercised by the parliament, cannot be conferred by the writ of fummons, but must be effentially and radically in the people, from whom their delegates and reprefentatives have all that they have. But, fays our author, "they must only chufe,

and trust those whom they chufe, to do what they lift; “and that is as much liberty as many of us deferve for "our irregular elections of burgeffes." This is ingenuously concluded: I take what fervant I please, and when. I have taken him, I muft fuffer him to do what he pleases. But from whence fhould this neceffity arife? Why may not I take one to be my groom, another to be my cook, and keep them both to the offices for which I took them? What law does herein reftrain my right? And if I am free in my private capacity to regulate my particular affairs VOL. II.

P P

according

according to my own difcretion, and to allot to each fervant his proper work, why have not I, with my affociates, the freemen of England, the like liberty of directing and limiting the powers of the fervants we employ in our public affairs? Our author gives us reasons proportionable to his judgment: "This were liberty with a mischief; and "that of chufing only is as much as many of us deferve." I have already proved, that, as far as our hiftorics reach, we have had no princes or magiftrates, but fuch as we have made, and they have had no other power than what we have conferred upon them. They cannot be the judges of our merit, who have no power but what we gave them, through an opinion they did or might deferve it. They may diftribute in parcels to particulars that with which they are entrusted in the grofs. But it is impoffible, that the public fhould depend absolutely upon those who are nothing above other men, except what they are made to be, for and by the public. The reftrictions therefore of the people's liberty must be from themfelves, or there can be

none.

Nevertheless I believe, that the powers of every country, city, and borough of England, are regulated by the general law to which they have all confented, and by which they are all made members of one political body. This obliges them to proceed with their delegates in a manner different from that which is used in the United Netherlands, or in Switzerland. Amongst thefe, every province, city, or canton, making a diftinct body independent from any other, and exercifing the fovereign power within itself, looks upon the reft as allies, to whom

they

they are bound only by fuch acts as they themselves have made; and when any new thing, not comprehended in them happens to arife, they oblige their delegates to give them an account of it, and retain the power of determining thofe matters in themselves. It is not so amongst us : every country does not make a diftinct body, having in itfelf a fovereign power, but is a member of that great body which comprehends the whole nation. It is not therefore for Kent or Suffex, Lewis or Maidstone, but for the whole nation, that the members chofen in those places are fent to ferve in parliament: and though it be fit for them as friends and neighbours (fo far as may be) to hearken to the opinions of the electors for the infor mation of their judgments, and to the end that what they fhall fay, may be of more weight, when every one is known not to speak his own thoughts only, but those of a great number of men; yet they are not strictly and properly obliged to give account of their actions to any, unlefs the whole body of the nation for which they serve, and who are equally concerned in their resolutions, could be affembled. This being impracticable, the only punifhment to which they are fubject, if they betray their truft, is scorn, infamy, hatred, and an affurance of being rejected, when they shall again feek the fame honour. Although this may feem a fmall matter to thofe who fear to do ill only from a fenfe of the pains inflicted; yet it is very terrible to men of ingenuous fpirits, as they are supposed to be, who are accounted fit to be intrufted with fo great powers. But why fhould this be "liberty with "a mifchief," if it were otherwife? Or how the liberty

of particular focieties would be greater, if they might do what they pleafed, than whilft they fend others to act for them, fuch wife men only as Filmer can tell us. For as no man, or number of men, can give a power which he or they have not, the Achaians, Etolians, Latins, Samnites, and Tufcans, who tranfacted all things relating to their affociations by delegates; and the Athenians, Carthaginians, and Romans, who kept the power of the flate in themselves; were all equally free. And in our days, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, the Switzers, and Grifons, wno are of the firft fort, and the Venetians, Genoefes, and Lucchefes, who are of the other, are fo alfo. All men that have any degree of common sense, plainly fee, that the liberty of those who act in their own perfons, and for those who fend delegates, is perfectly the fame, and the exercise is, and can only be, changed by their confent.

But whatever the law or custom of England be in this point, it cannot concern our question. The general propofition concerning a patriarchical power cannot be proved by a fingle example. If there be a general power every where, forbidding nations to give inftructions to their delegates, they can do it no-where. If there be no fuch thing, every people may do it, unless they have de prived themselves of their right, all being born under the fame condition. It is to no purpose to say, that the nations before-mentioned had not kings, and therefere might act as they did. For, if the general thefis be true, they must have kings; and if it be not, none are obliged to have them, unless they think fit, and the kings they

make