of men, as officers of excife, from the rights of electors; and has been the profeffed defign of all the plans which have been propofed for parliamentary reform. And the great purposes of the Representative institution have been alike abandoned, when the House of Commons has been induced tamely to furrender the rights which it was deputed to maintain; and when it has affumed powers to itself committed to the other branches of the Legislature. They were alike abandoned when it affigned to the proclamations of Henry the Eighth the validity of laws; and when it extorted from Charles the First the privilege of not being diffolved without its own confent.

Our immediate concern is with the duties of individual Members of Parliament. The proper discharge of them however so closely depends on a thorough knowledge of the leading conflitutional purposes which the. House of Commons is formed to anfwer; that a fummary account of those purposes, far from being foreign to the prefent plan, feems neceffary to render it useful.

1. The equilibrium of the Conftitution under which we live, like that of the frame of the planet on which we dwell, is preserved by the reciprocal action and counteraction of its component parts. Were either of the elementary branches of the Legislature to invade the rights of the others, it would experience a determined refiftance from their combined and countervailing exertions. The House of Commons, by a fuitable exercise of the powers with which it is invefted, performs its part in the important office of fupporting the balance of the Conftitution. The peculiar fervice required of it is to communicate and carry into effect the national will; and induftriously to repel every attack, whether open or disguised, which may be directed against public liberty. The mode in which it repels encroachments, either of the Crown or of the House of Lords, on the rights of the People, varies according to the circumftances of the cafe and of the times. When emergences have required open refiftance, the Houfe of Commons has not fhewn itself disposed to shrink from actual contest. But, in the common train of events, it effectually fecures the object in queftion by the lefs irritating, and therefore the more falutary, method

VOL. I.

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method of filently supporting its own privileges, and exercifing without interruption or abatement all its cuftomary functions. And when engaged in the conftitutional defence of popular freedom, it is equally a bulwark to the Sovereign and to the Peerage. For, by precluding thofe branches of the Legiflature from attaining to exorbitant authority, it prevents the danger which each would incur from the predominance of the other; and will in most cafes give timely aid to the weaker party, left it should itself have to encounter in the victor a formidable affailant of its own rights, armed with a double fhare of power, and flufhed with recent fuccefs.

2. The inftitution of a Houfe of Commons enfures almost to every inhabitant of the realm an opportunity of making known his grievances to a tribunal, which is competent to provide for their redrefs. If the evil of which he complains be real, and of any confiderable magnitude in the general eftimation; whether it arifes from the abfence, from the inefficiency, or from the abuse of pofitive law; it is nearly certain that fome Member of Parliament will be influenced either by laudable or by repre

henfible

.

henfible motives, by the impulfe of duty, of benevolence, of compaffion, of patriotism; or by selfishness, by refentment, by vanity, by party spirit, or even by the mere inquietude of a bufy difpofition, to bring it forward into public notice. It is true, that the other House of Parliament alfo is open to the petitions of the fubject. But the clofe connection which fubfifts between the House of Commons and the People, and the intercourse which the members maintain directly with their immediate conftituents, and indirectly with those who are not electors through the medium of those who are, gives a peculiar facility of accefs to the reprefentations of private individuals, and a peculiar profpect of their being as powerfully supported as they deserve.

3. This branch of the Legislature also furnishes the means of patient and fafe difcuffion of political grievances and popular difcontents, before they are grown to fuch a magnitude as neither to be tolerated with safety to the State, nor removed without the risk of dangerous convulfions. The beneficial effects of a Representative Houfe of Commons in N 2 this

this point of view are not to be described. In Despotic Governments, from the want of fimilar inftitutions, the fmothered embers accumulate heat in fecret, until they burst into a general flame; the People, impatient at length of enduring the wrongs over which they have long brooded in filent indignation, seek redress by open rebellion, as the only method by which they can hope to obtain it. In the ancient Democratic States, in which the principle of representation was not adopted, endeavours to redress glaring defects in the Constitution were ufually productive of ferments, tumults, and factious diforders, which rendered the attempt abortive, or terminated in hafty and impolitic refolves. But in Great Britain, the Houfe of Commons ferves as a conductor to draw off the lightning by a noifelefs and conftant difcharge; inftead of fuffering it to collect until the cloud becomes incapable of containing it, and by an inftantaneous flash to level to the ground a fabric, which ages had been employed in erecting.

In this refpect, as in others already mentioned, the House of Commons deferves to be confidered