against this derangement, and an active sentiment is awakened in favour of the subsisting establish

ments.

When minds are heated with a love of innovation, and hurried by I know not what fatality towards revolutions, regenerations, and conventions, to make the minutest change is to open a floodgate through which the torrents of the great deep are ready to burst in upon us. Now we may choose a time in

which the ardours of the whole nation are directed towards the saving side; in which the different classes of the community, with a spirit of union and sobriety, most honourable to their understandings and hearts, have joined in one great fraternity for the preservation of order and peace; in which the body of the people will be themselves the security for the maintenance of the whole, while a regular and constitutional mode is pursued of altering, repairing, and strengthening, the construction of particular parts. If this be an opportunity, it would be wise to embrace it, for such a time may not hastily again present itself: it would be wise to embrace this great occasion of contrasting, in the view of all mankind, the sterling sense and moderation of this happy country, with the violence, the cruelty, and absurdity of a neighbouring nation: let these memorable and opposite events pass down recorded together to our latest posterity, and furnish examples for warning and for imitation to future generations*.

It is a circumstance beyond all praise honourable to the nation in general, that two feelings, which

*It is necessary to look back to the date of this paper, as its principles may not apply at present. Indeed, whether they did then apply or not, it little imports to their value: the application is a question of fact, which was far from being the main object of the paper.

seldom arise together in the mind, except where there is much good sense and discrimination, at this moment divide the minds of Englishmen. They are at once occupied with their cares for the safety of the constitution, and their solicitude for its reform. Nothing can afford a stronger testimony to the moderation of their views, and the correctness of their ideas on this question of reform, than their anxiety to preserve the spirit of the constitution entire for its sake. To demands so regulated, so reasonable, and so universal, the legislator must listen sooner or later; but the conduct and consequences of the measure may be deeply and permanently affected by this difference in the order of time. It is particularly wise to do what must be done, with the best grace we can assume. It is, in such a case the summit of good policy in the legislature to anticipate the struggles of the people. The general sense of a country, when it has outlived its first enthusiasm, is for the most part in the right. If it remain steady through a course of years, it is for the most part irresistible. Whichever way it points, the legislature must one day or other go, or be driven; and it had better go, than be driven; go willingly, and at once, than late, and by compulsion. The people are never content with what they have extorted; unreasonable opposition provokes their indignation; and when once they have become acquainted with their own strength, they can rarely be brought to use it with discretion. Perhaps, for these reasons, the present is a crisis the most favourable that has happened, or is likely to happen again, for the parliament of England to begin a reform of the representation, and correct what other abuses in the practice have falsified the spirit of our excellent constitution.

With respect to the conduct and degrees of so de

licate a proceeding, I shall state loosely some general observations. To a business of such difficulty and danger, every man should bring with him a certain temper of mind, borrowed from a previous contemplation of the political situation of his country at the moment. He should make up some general resolution as to the degree of alteration to which his assent should be given. When our objects are undefined, there is danger of being drawn by the detail into a wider scheme of correction than is prudent and salutary under our circumstances. Evils are

not always to be removed, simply because they are evils. In every human system there are necessary evils; and sometimes, in our solicitude to shake off these badges of our infirmity, we substitute more solid inconveniences. Those who go to work with high-wrought notions of purity and perfection, are as ill-calculated for the undertaking, as if their object were really to destroy our government, or to render it unfit for the purposes of society. As there is neither absolute good nor absolute evil in life, it is the business of him who would reform our condition, not simply to separate the evil from the good, but to balance between evils of different magnitudes. He must distinguish between adscititious and necessary ills; between those which are compensated by no advantages, or by none that amount to a counterpoise, and those which grow out of our felicities and cling to our blessings as the badges of our imperfection. Without this thorough examination, this round calculation, we can never effectuate a wholesome reform; and the same arrow, which was aimed at an evil, may strike through a blessing that lies beyond it, and sacrifice a substantial good to the removal of a diminutive sorrow, Government is not a mere holiday amusement, not a model to be gazed

at for its delicacy of workmanship; but a machine to endure, to suffer constant use, constant attrition, constant exposure; a thing of every day, fitted to the vulgar, the coarse, and the profane, as well as to the refined, the lofty, and the learned.

I have said that a member of the legislature, before he enters upon so momentous a question, should bring with him the proper temper, resulting from a candid survey of the present state of the country. If, in regarding her comparative situation in different periods, he perceive that our present constitution, with all its imperfections and abuses, has not prevented a rise of fortune since her depressed condition in 1783, so rapid as to be almost incredible; if he find that four annual millions have acceded to the revenue of the nation; that the number of ships entered inwards and cleared outwards have increased from seven to twelve thousand; that the value of imports, which in 1783 was thirteen, is in 1792 not less than nineteen millions sterling; while the exports, which produced fourteen, have mounted to twenty; that the public funds have risen from between fifty and sixty, to between ninety and a hundred; if he suffer his mind to meditate at leisure on these important facts, will he not be reserved in the liberty he allows himself of proposing or supporting plans of alteration? He may say, that the political prosperity which has here been referred to does not include political happiness; but let him solemnly ask himself, if the people, unless they were generally happy, nay, rendered so by their government, would or could enable their government, by their loans, contributions, and commercial exertions, to pursue its objects with such vigour and success?

The Americans, whose example has sometimes been cited for very opposite purposes to those for

which it has been adduced in the course of these essays, built as much as possible on old foundations, and left standing their ancient records, and precedents, and all the common law of the land. They left them standing, not only because they wisely held them in veneration, but because they felt, for woful experience had improved them in polity, that it was enough at once to establish a constitution which contained within itself the principles of its future amelioration. They left this reforming principle to operate in a course analogous to that of nature, in a course of incidental improvement; to wait the suggestions of time and occasion, and to advance cautiously on the lessons of experience. The same seeds of melioration are treasured in our own constitution, and are not to be provoked into sudden maturity by violent applications, but must be left to the kindly influence of the seasons, and the cherishing dews of heaven.

I did not propose to myself, in setting out, to enter at all into the detail of the question; but one or two thoughts occur so forcibly to my mind, that I must lay them before the reader.

Much has been argued, by the advocates of reform, on the duty of going back to the Saxon scheme of legislation, as the ancient government of our forefathers, and, as such, entitled to be followed by their posterity. The inheritable nature of our rights and liberties has been eloquently enlarged upon by a man who, with a giant's strength, has stood between our constitution and its assassins: but this part of his argument our Saxon reformists have been inconsistent enough to assail with ridicule and contempt. It is clear that both are favourers of the principle of inheritance, with this immense difference, that the one would send