treatise of a new arrangement of ministry, which failed for no other reason than that the different parties could not agree on the proper person to fill it.*

This secret influence which prevails must be allowed to be extremely disgraceful; nor can it ever be effectually remedied but by contracting the duration of parliaments.

If it be objected to annual parliaments that by this means the tumult and riot attendant on elections will be oftener repeated, it ought to be remembered that their duration is the chief source of these disorders. Render a seat in the House of Commons of less value, and you diminish at once the violence of the struggle. In America, the election of representatives takes place throughout that vast continent in one day, with the greatest tranquillity.

In a mixed constitution like ours it is impossible to estimate the importance of an independent parliament; for as it is here our freedom consists, if this barrier to the encroachments of arbitrary power once fails, we can oppose no other. Should the king attempt to govern without a parliament, or should the upper house pretend to legislate independently of the lower, we should immediately take the alarm; but if the House of Commons falls insensibly under the control of the other two branches of the legislature, our danger is greater, because our apprehensions are less. The forms of a free constitution surviving when its spirit is extinct would perpetuate slavery by rendering it more concealed and secure. On this account, I apprehend, did Montesquieu predict the loss of our freedom, from the legislative power becoming more corrupt than the executive; a crisis to which, if it has not arrived already, it is hastening apace. The immortal Locke, far from looking with the indifference too common on the abuses in our representation, considered all improper influence exerted in that quarter as threatening the very dissolution of government. "Thus," says he, "to regulate candidates and electors, and new-model the ways of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security?"

No enormity can subsist long without meeting with advocates; on which account we need not wonder that the corruption of parliament has been justified under the mild denomination of influence, though it must pain every virtuous mind to see the enlightened Paley engaged in its defence. If a member votes consistently with his convictions, his conduct in that instance has not been determined by influence; but if he votes otherwise, give it what gentle name you please, he forfeits his integrity; nor is it possible to mark the boundaries which should limit his compliance; for if he may deviate a little to attain

As I have taken my information on this head entirely on the authority of the work called "Anecdotes of Lord Chatham," the reader may not be displeased with the following extract, vol. ii. page 121:-"The management of the House of Commons, as it is called, is a confidential department unknown to the constitution. In the public accounts it is immersed under the head of Secret Service Money. It is usually given to the secretary of state when that post is filled by a commoner. The business of the department is to distribute with art and policy among the members who have no ostensible places sums of money for their support during the session; besides contracts, lottery-tickets, and other douceurs. It is no uncommon circumstance, at the end of a session, for a gentleman to receive five hundred or a thousand pounds for his services."

the see of Winchester, he may certainly step a little farther to reach the dignity of primate. How familiar must the practice of corruption have become when a philosophical moralist, a minister of religion, of great talents and virtue, in the calm retirement of his study, does not hesitate to become its public apologist!

The necessity of a reform in the constitution of parliament is in nothing more obvious than in the ascendency of the aristocracy. This colossus bestrides both houses of parliament; legislates in one, and exerts a domineering influence over the other. It is humiliating, at the approach of an election, to see a whole county send a deputation to an earl or duke, and beg a representative as you would beg an alms. A multitude of laws have been framed, it is true, to prevent all interference of peers in elections; but they neither are nor can be effectual while the House of Commons opens its doors to their sons and brothers. If our liberty depends on the balance and control of the respective orders in the state, it must be extremely absurd to blend them together by placing the father in one department of the legislature and his family in the other.

Freedom is supposed by some to derive great security from the existence of a regular opposition; an expedient which is in my opinion both the offspring and the cherisher of faction. That a minister should be opposed when his measures are destructive to his country can admit of no doubt; that a systematic opposition should be maintained against any man merely as a minister, without regard to the principles he may profess, or the measures he may propose, which is intended by a regular opposition, appears to me a most corrupt and unprincipled maxim. When a legislative assembly is thus thrown into parties, distinguished by no leading principle, however warm and animated their debates, it is plain they display only a struggle for the emoluments of office. This the people discern, and in consequence listen with very little attention to the representations of the minister on the one hand, or the minority on the other; being persuaded the only real difference between them is, that the one is anxious to gain what the other is anxious to keep. If a measure be good, it is of no importance to the nation from whom it proceeds; yet will it be esteemed by the opposition a point of honour not to let it pass without throwing every obstruction in its way. If we listen to the minister for the time being, the nation is always flourishing and happy; if we hearken to the opposition, it is a chance if it be not on the brink of destruction. In an assembly convened to deliberate on the affairs of a nation, how disgusting to hear the members perpetually talk of their connexions, and their resolution to act with a particular set of men, when, if they have happened by chance to vote according to their convictions rather than their party, half their speeches are made up of apologies for a conduct so new and unexpected! When they see men united who agree in nothing but their hostility to the minister, the people fall at first into amazement and irresolution; till perceiving political debate is a mere scramble for profit and power, they endeavour to become as corrupt as their betters. It is not in that roar of faction which deafens VOL. II.-E

the ear and sickens the heart the still voice of Liberty is heard. She turns from the disgusting scene, and regards these struggles as the pangs and convulsions in which she is doomed to expire.

The era of parties, flowing from the animation of freedom, is ever followed by an era of faction, which marks its feebleness and decay. Parties are founded on principle, factions on men; under the first, the people are contending respecting the system that shall be pursued; under the second, they are candidates for servitude, and are only debating whose livery they shall wear. The purest times of the Roman republic were distinguished by violent dissensions; but they consisted in the jealousy of the several orders of the state among each other; on the ascendence of the patricians on the one side and the plebeians on the other; a useful struggle, which maintained the balance and equipoise of the constitution. In the progress of corruption things took a turn; the permanent parties which sprang from the fixed principles of government were lost, and the citizens arranged themselves under the standard of particular leaders, being bandied into factions, under Marius or Sylla, Cæsar or Pompey; while the republic stood by without any interest in the dispute, a passive and helpless victim. The crisis of the fall of freedom in different nations, with respect to the causes that produce it, is extremely uniform. After the manner of the ancient factions, we hear much in England of the Bedford party, the Rockingham party, the Portland party,-when it would puzzle the wisest man to point out their political distinction. The useful jealousy of the separate orders is extinct, being all melted down and blended into one mass of corruption. The House of Commons looks with no jealousy on the House of Lords, nor the House of Lords on the House of Commons; the struggle in both is maintained by the ambition of powerful individuals and families, between whom the kingdom is thrown as the prize, and the moment they unite they perpetuate its subjection and divide its spoils.

From a late instance we see they quarrel only about the partition of the prey, but are unanimous in defending it. To the honour of Mr. Fox and the band of illustrious patriots of which he is the leader, it will however be remembered that they stood firm against a host of opponents when, assailed by every species of calumny and invective, they had nothing to expect but the reproaches of the present and the admiration of all future times. If any thing can rekindle the sparks of freedom, it will be the flame of their eloquence; if any thing can reanimate her faded form, it will be the vigour of such minds.

The disordered state of our representation, it is acknowledged on all hands, must be remedied some time or other; but it is contended that it would be improper at present, on account of the political ferment that occupies the minds of men and the progress of republican principles; a plausible objection, if delay can restore public tranquillity: but unless I am greatly mistaken, it will have just a contrary effect. It is hard to conceive how the discontent that flows from the abuses of government can be allayed by their being perpetuated. If they are of such a nature that they can neither be palliated nor denied, and are

made the ground of invective against the whole of our constitution, are not they its best friends who wish to cut off this occasion of scandal and complaint? The theory of our constitution, we say, and justly, has been the admiration of the world; the cavils of its enemies, then, derive their force entirely from the disagreement between that theory and its practice: nothing therefore remains but to bring them as near as human affairs will admit to a perfect correspondence. This will cut up faction by the roots, and immediately distinguish those who wish to reform the constitution from those who wish its subversion. Since the abuses are real, the longer they are continued the more they will be known; the discontented will be always gaining ground, and, though repulsed, will return to the charge with redoubled vigour and advantage. Let reform be considered as a chirurgical operation, if you please; but since the constitution must undergo it or die, it is best to submit before the remedy becomes as dangerous as the disease. The example drawn from a neighbouring kingdom as an argument for delay ought to teach us a contrary lesson. Had the encroachments of arbitrary power been steadily resisted, and remedies been applied as evils appeared, instead of piling them up as precedents, the disorders of government could never have arisen to that enormous height, nor would the people have been impelled to the dire necessity of building the whole fabric of political society afresh. It seems an infatuation in governments that in tranquil times they treat the people with contempt, and turn a deaf ear to their complaints; till, public resentment kindling, they find when it is too late that in their eagerness to retain every thing they have lost all.

The pretences of Mr. Pitt and his friends for delaying this great business are so utterly inconsistent that it is too plain they are averse in reality to its ever taking place. When Mr. Pitt is reminded that he himself at the beginning of his ministry recommended parliamentary reform, he replies, It was necessary then on account of the calamitous state of the nation, just emerged from an unsuccessful war and filled with gloom and disquiet. But, unless the people are libelled, they now are still more discontented,—with this difference, that their uneasiness formerly arose from events but remotely connected with unequal representation, but that this is now the chief ground of complaint. It is absurd, however, to rest the propriety of reform on any turn of public affairs. If it be not requisite to secure our freedom, it is vain and useless; but if it be a proper means of preserving that blessing, the nation will need it as much in peace as in war. When we wish to retain those habits which we know it were best to relinquish, we are extremely ready to be soothed with momentary pretences for delay, though they appear on reflection to be drawn from quite opposite topics, and therefore to be equally applicable to all times and seasons.

A similar delusion is practised in the conduct of public affairs. If the people be tranquil and composed, and have not caught the passion of reform, it is impolitic, say the ministry, to disturb their minds by agitating a question that lies at rest; if they are awakened, and touched with a conviction of the abuse, we must wait, say they, till the ferment

subsides, and not lessen our dignity by seeming to yield to popular clamour: if we are at peace, and commerce flourishes, it is concluded we cannot need any improvement in circumstances so prosperous and happy; if, on the other hand, we are at war, and our affairs unfortunate, an amendment in the representation is dreaded, as it would seem an acknowledgment that our calamities flowed from the ill conduct of parliament. Now, as the nation must always be in one or other of these situations, the conclusion is, the period of reform can never arrive at all.

This pretence for delay will appear the more extraordinary in the British ministry from a comparison of the exploits they have performed with the task they decline. They have found time for involving us in millions of debt-for cementing a system of corruption that reaches from the cabinet to the cottage-for carrying havoc and devastation to the remotest extremities of the globe-for accumulating taxes which famish the peasant and reward the parasite-for bandying the whole kingdom into factions, to the ruin of all virtue and public spirit-for the completion of these achievements they have suffered no opportunity to escape them. Elementary treatises on time mention various arrangements and divisions, but none have ever touched on the chronology of statesmen. These are a generation who measure their time not so much by the revolutions of the sun as by the revolutions of power. There are two eras particularly marked in their calendar,—the one the period they are in the ministry, and the other when they are out,-which have a very different effect on their sentiments and reasoning. Their course commences in the character of friends to the people, whose grievances they display in all the colours of variegated diction. But the moment they step over the threshold of St. James's, they behold every thing in a new light; the taxes seem lessened, the people rise from their depression, the nation flourishes in peace and plenty, and every attempt at improvement is like heightening the beauties of Paradise or mending the air of Elysium.

SECTION IV.

On Theories, and the Rights of Man.

AMONG the many alarming symptoms of the present time, it is not the least that there is a prevailing disposition to hold in contempt the theory of liberty as false and visionary. For my own part, it is my determination never to be deterred by an obnoxious name from an open avowal of any principles that appear useful and important. Were the ridicule now cast on the Rights of Man confined to a mere phrase, as the title of a book, it were of little consequence; but when that is made the pretence for deriding the doctrine itself, it is matter of serious alarm.

To place the rights of man as the basis of lawful government is not peculiar to Mr. Paine; but was done more than a century ago by men