solidity, and indivisibility of the British crown, is the source of complicated blessings to this kingdom. As the point of union to the different members of the community, it cements and compacts our frame of polity, and gives steadiness and direction to the jarring interests and counsels of the different organs of the state.

The same circumstance of unity and solidity in the executive power, is admirable in a view to the liberty of the subject. Wherever it is shared among many, it becomes vague, slippery, and fluctuating; difficult to be limited, because difficult to be ascertained: but thus bound down and consolidated by the constitu tion of England, it presents a permanent and definable object to the people of this country, against which all their efforts and their caution may with certainty be directed. Thus, in the progress of political liberty, a regular course of attack has been conducted against this citadel of prerogative, and a regular course of grants have been obtained: what has been thus gradually and with difficulty acquired, has been wisely used and piously guarded, and has been continually increased by casual accessions, till it has gained a predominancy in the system.

In contemplating this mild strength of the executive power, it is an additional comfort to consider, that it arises, not so much from its own separate resources, as from its binding connection with the rest of our government; as an integral part of the whole, deriving its security, not from its own private supports, but from the reciprocal dependence of a constitutional balance. Here we see the reason why the army is so little depended upon by the crown: to this we ascribe the subjection of the military to the civil power, and the sacredness of the English law. But if imperfections still remain in the British

constitution, and imperfection is the law of nature in every thing that is human, let it console us to reflect that it is not more distinguished by what it has already acquired, than by its power of acquiring still. This principle of improvement has lately endeared to us our precious inheritance, by adding fresh value to the trial by jury. While therefore we are grafting new excellences on our native "tree of liberty," while we are reposing under its guardian shade, let us gratefully cherish its root; let us moisten it with our blood, in defending it against those who would unnaturally change it for one of French growth and cultivation, with its crude and noxious produce of the "rights of man."

No. 38. SATURDAY, JANUARY 26.

TO THE ASSOCIATION FOR PRESERVING LIBERTY AND PROPERTY AGAINST REPUBLICANS AND

LEVELLERS.

THE most difficult part of my subject lies yet before me-I mean the question of a reform of parliament. I have endeavoured, in what I have written already, to show the danger that lurks in the phrase of the " rights of man," when unexplained and unqualified, and the nonsense it implies in its vulgar acceptation. It has been attempted also, as far as the necessity for compression would allow, to contrast the fundamental principles of our own constitution

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with the spirit of these doctrines. Happily for the effect of this reasoning, there was an appeal to practical proofs, in the experience of two great countries; examples interesting and affecting to Europe, to the world, and to posterity. If the reasoning has been good, it furnishes two most valuable conclusions: we learn from it, to consider our constitution as devolved to us in a course of nature, and as, consequently, well accommodated to the condition of man-but we learn from it also, that, like its great prototype, it contains a principle of improvement, has a property of growth under due cultivation, and affords intimations from time to time which assist our endeavours to promote it.

In this view, while we bury in our hearts the precious treasure of our rights, to depart thence only with our blood, we feel it a duty to ourselves to add to them, as time and occasion permit; meanwhile, taking a religious care that what we add is sterling gold, and not a glittering bastard coin of foreign adulteration. By rights, I mean the rights of the people; and by people, I mean all the orders of the state; for the word supposes orders and degrees, and includes them-I mean the rights of Englishmensuch rights as breathe no spirit of destruction, and can only be promoted by referring to subsisting models. Let those then cherish, as doubly sacred, the principles of our constitution, who meditate wholesome reforms. If they wish to reform the practice, they have additional reasons for preserving the principle entire; since, as it has been said before, to spoil and to improve, are words more strongly opposed than to spoil and to preserve.

I proceed to consider the subject of reform under two heads; in respect to the time when, and the manner how.

The argument which appears to have been most insisted upon by those who press the present moment, is the security afforded by the prosperous condition of the country-an argument to which there are evidently two handles: for it may either recom. mend the time being, as offering less ground of complaint, and, therefore, less to apprehend from violence; or, supposing other reasons to exist for the propriety of delay, this same prosperity of the country makes the task of supporting such delay easy, and the intermediate time is brightened by the consciousness that we are nevertheless advancing.

It is doubtless the character of a strong government, as it is of a well-constituted mind, to shrink from no examination of itself, and to acknowledge with candour its infirmities and errors. This is, in fact, the great praise of the British constitution. There is nothing mysterious, or imposing, or jealous in its operations; and so often are its fundamental articles implicated in subjects under the consideration of the legislature, that to one unacquainted with its cautious provisions against hasty adoptions, consisting in the triple ordeal to which they are subject, our system might appear but a perishable tenure at best. Built to encounter the storms of human passions and human vices, our vessel is borne out into the main with all her canvas spread; the tempest in vain assails her; she has no rocks, or shoals, or quicksands to fear: what seems to menace her with momentary ruin, only speeds her course; and what looks so like her own unwilling labour, is in truth the tossings of the troubled medium through which she proceeds.

Although the constitution of our country is thus hardy from its habits of daily exposure, yet there

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are rough mischances to which every thing that is human is surrendered: and there are contingencies in the affairs of men, which it would be policy in us to elude, and madness to encounter. If it were true, that in this country the fanatical doctrine of the rights of man" had so far gained upon the good sense of Englishmen, as to blind them to the blessings of our constitution, and inflame a deluded majority of the people with a zeal for destroying it, I should say, that this was the wrongest time that could be chosen for canvassing its defects.

All reforms, which are meant to be nothing more than reforms, require a sober disposition of the country at large; and those who sit on so solemn a question, should be able to devote to it the undivided force of their minds, in the fullest security as to every other political or personal concern. Now, although the present is a moment in which too many outrages are passing near us, and too many bad spirits are at work in our own country, to leave our minds in a state of tranquillity; yet the high consolatory proofs of a loyal and constitutional sentiment, re-echoed through all the classes of the community, to his Majesty's late proclamation, have, for some while at least, laid all our apprehensions to sleep. Thus far we have a negative argument in favour of the present juncture for entering upon the work of reform.

A great deal has been said in the preceding papers, on the powers of action and re-action, residing in our constitution, as copied from the great law of nature; in pursuance of the same plan of policy, measures that work towards any capital alteration in the scheme of our legislation can never be so wisely timed as when there is evidently a spirit residing in the community at large to balance