confidered as a peculiar fafeguard to all ranks of fociety; to the King, and to individuals and bodies of men diftinguished by fuperior dignity or wealth, by obviating the probability of times of confufion in which they have the moft to lose; to the commonalty, by preventing thofe civil commotions which, when once they have arisen, however fmall may have been their beginnings, often continue to rage. with increasing fury after the original cause of them has difappeared, or has ceafed to be deemed important; until focial order is fubverted, commerce and manufactures are deftroyed, the country is deluged with blood, and the conteft ends in anarchy or defpotism.

4. The Houfe of Commons is a standing tribunal, before which the Executive Ministers of the Crown are conftantly queftioned and called to a ftrict account by able and ever-, watchful opponents. Their measures are usually fcrutinized in the outfet, before there can have been time for them, however ruinous in their tendency, to have produced very alarming effects. The certainty of unremitted attacks from adverfaries too acute to lofe

N 3

any

advantage,

advantage, and too inveterate to give quarter if fuccessful, contributes to deter Minifters, by motives of perfonal confideration, from embarking in pernicious or hazardous fchemes; and efpecially from unneceffarily involving their country in wars, which furnish peculiar opportunities of enquiry and accufation to their antagonists, at a time when their own powers of defence are crippled by the reserve with which they are obliged to speak on the state of public affairs, and projected military operations. The fame motives will incline them to terminate the contest whenever reasonable conditions of peace can be obtained. Thus happily does the inftitution of the House of Commons abate the fury, both at home and among foreign nations, of the fevereft fcourge of the human

race.

Nor is the force of this commanding fuperintendence confined to the leading Members of Administration. The Judges, the Officers of the Army and Navy, in a word, all who occupy posts in any department of the State, are confcious that, perhaps before another day paffes, their conduct may be brought under

parliamentary difcuffion, and probed in its moft minute and tender parts. This rigorous inquifition will be dreaded, even in those cases in which the House of Commons has not the

right of following it by the infliction of pu

nishment.

To thefe benefits may be added other analogous advantages. The Members who are not invested with official employments are ftimulated to exert to the utmost their feveral talents, and to contend in acts of difinterestedness and patriotism, not only by being witneffes of the conduct of each other, but by the recollection that they are performing their part on a public stage, as it were before the eyes and within the hearing of the whole Nation. Latent powers are called forth; fcope is afforded for the exercise of abilities of every kind; the way to the highest political eminence is open to all who are worthy of attaining to it, though undiftinguished by perfonal wealth or rank, though originally unfupported by powerful connections. The House of Commons too, by receiving into its bofom persons of every profeffion, confers honour on

all liberal occupations; and deftroys that odious and degrading barrier which in defpotic countries keeps afunder the different claffes of fociety. By admitting the Merchant, it ennobles trade; by giving access to the Soldier, it fixes and retains him a Citizen.

5. Among the most important fervices of the House of Commons may be reckoned the influence which it has in forming the national character. By the active difcharge of the functions entrusted to it by the Constitution, and by the publicity of its debates, it diffuses a spirit of political enquiry; turns the general attention from frivolous employments to rational and manly pursuits; and teaches the people of Great Britain to infpect, and to judge of, public measures, to know, to value, and to defend their rights,

The conciliating intercourse which periodically takes place at elections between the candidates and their conftituents, together with the connection which continues to fubfift between the Members of Parliament and those whom they represent, and between affluent

men

men not in Parliament, and the electors with whom they wish to have weight, corrects the prejudices, and alleviates the incidental vexations and evils, which will unavoidably refult from the diftinction of ranks in the community. The poor indulge the elating idea of political importance; and the rich feel themselves obliged to folicit and to receive the poffeffion of their darling object at the hand of their dependents. It is to the want of an intimate and neceffarily recurring communication between the higher and lower orders of fociety, and of a reciprocal sense of obligations conferred and received, that we are to ascribe the overweening pride of the Nobles in many of the kingdoms on the Continent, and the abject humiliation of their vaffals. None perhaps but they who have been eye-witneffes can duly eftimate the effect wrought on the human mind by an uninterrupted consciousness of dignity, power, and wealth; or by an unvaried fenfe of poverty, weakness, and depreffion.

Such are the honourable and ufeful offices in which every Member of the House of Commons bears a part. We are now to examine