or elevations in rank, to Lord Melville's accomplice, colleague, sworn friend, and patron, Mr. Pitt, and very many of them are under high personal obligations to the noble defendant himself, yet the plaintiffs in the cause, cannot now challenge a single person of those who are to try the issue between them. If, therefore, by the act of the faction, the nation have been made to believe, that the cause was snatched from a trial by jury and transferred to the Lords, from a persuasion that such favours must influence their decision, is not the house as a tribunal, scandalously libelled?

When the cause, after a long argument and a solemn vote, had been put into a regular and constitutional course, for a fair and unobjectionable trial, why a proceeding so unnecessary to justice? Why such a tricking and suspicious manoeuvre? Why bring under suspicion the highest tribunal in the country? Why insinuate that the parliamentary judicature of England is no better than the parliamentary judicature of France had been under the monarchy, in which it was notorious, that the judges considered not who was right and who was wrong, but which of the parties had put in the strongest claim to their gratitude; always selling public justice for private gain, and paying their own personal debts, at the expence of those who were so unfortunate as to become suitors of their courts against the great and powerful.

But there is another view of the subject, tending to the same point of implied libel. We are, you know, familiar with statements, and with long lists of PEERS, shewing that a very considerable proportion of them actually appoint to their seats in the house of commons a very large proportion of the Borough faction ;2 and Mr. Fox tells us,3 that if the members so appointed do not implicitly obey the instructions of those who so appoint them, they are not considered as gentlemen. In this view of the case, then, is not the nation taught to consider a great body of the peerage, as real authors and prompters of the measure, as, in effect thus instructing their representatives: Lord 'Melville is our friend; and as nothing else can save

1 See p. 34. 2 See the journals of the commons, for 6th. May, 1793. 3 See a future page near at hand.

him, you must at all events, remove his cause into our court, where we shall do what we can to favour his escape.' Those, I say, who either by words or actions, cause such things to be suspected, do in effect slander and libel in a very unseemly manner, the house of lords, in the persons of a large proportion of its members. But whatever may be the political er rors, or human infirmities, hanging about any of the members of that house of parliament, it is, my Lord, my decided opinion, and I solemnly declare it upon my honour as a gentleman, that on trying the impeachment of lord Melville, their judgment, whatever it may be, will sustain to the full the high reputation of their tribunal, and prove completely satisfactory to the nation: and I moreover believe that that judgment, whenever it comes, will not raise the reputation of the faction in the house of commons, who have acted as we have seen.

But, my Lord, such ever have been, and ever must be, the proceedings of parliaments raised upon the ruins of the nation's liberty. Even so early as in the reign of king William, in consequence of parliament having obtained only a three years continuance, and of the suc cess of the court in preventing an exclusion of placemen, we find it said of such corruption, ""Tis this "that has changed the very natures of Englishmen, "and of valliant made them cowards; of eloquent, "dumb; and of honest men, villains: it is this can "make a whole house of commons eat their own words, " and countervote what they had just before resolved on: it is this could summon the mercenary members "from all quarters of the town in an instant 10 vote "their fellow criminals innocent:"" By these

66

means they made their numbers and interest in the "house so great, that no miscarriages in the govern"ment could ever be redressed, nor the meanest tool "belonging to them punished: some of which they "did indeed take into their own hands, which raised in "the people a high expectation that some extraordi"nary penalties would be inflicted upon them; when "their design at the same time was nothing else than "to protect and screen them from the ordinary course of

66

justice. Such is now the difference, in point of cor"ruption, between a common jury and the grand jury of the nation! such a mutual assistance and support "have they been to one another in the several misma66 nagements of their trusts !

I trust, my Lord, the nation is not in a temper to view with apathy these proceedings. If it can submit to these things, and longer endure the usurpations of a Borough faction, it is a nation fit only to furnish places, and pensions, and pillage to the unprincipled and avaricious! and if, after Mr Pitt's black share in the transactions reported by the Commissioners of Naval inquiry, and the part he has acted in the proceedings we have spoken of, it can tamely bear the continuance of his ministry, it is a nation that ought to forget it ever produced Russells and Sidneys and Hampdens ; and to blush at the very mention of freedom or public spirit! no, my Lord these things and these men cannot be forgotten. Flesh and blood can but bear to a certain point. We are on the eve, I trust of this man's utter expulsion from a power he has most criminally misused, never more to contaminate by his vices the counsels of his sovereign; never more to exert his "influence as a minister," to rivet on the neck of the nation the yoke of a plundering faction; never more to possess the power of plunging again the dagger of an apostate into the bosom of the constitution: and we are on the eve of the day, I also trust, when the nation shall pass its irreversible sentence of extinction, on that claim to a right of voting without responsibility, which has been followed up by actually voting against the rights, the justice, the indignant feelings, the honour, and the unanimous and known judgment of the nation. The nation and the faction are now at issue: there is no medium. We must again my Lord, assemble in our counties, and our towns; and let it be seen whether the faction shall master the nation, or the nation master the faction.

1 The danger of MERCENARY PARLIAMENTS: with a preface shewing the infinite mischiefs of LONG and PACKED PARLIAMENTS. p. 9, 13. Edition of 1722, but written in or before 1702.

LETTER XX.

MY LORD,

BUT it is said, that many of the two hundred and

An

sixteen, and many of the two hundred and twenty nine, although they voted according to their own judgment, and their own conscience, yet voted against their own opinions, frequently declared in private company. How is this? Is not here a contradiction in terms? absurdity? What then! still it is just as it should be, that is, it naturally grows out of a system which is nothing else but contradiction, absurdity, and wickedness; the system, by which such non-entities as Midhurst, Gatton, and Old Sarum give actual, operative legislators to the land; legislators who are at any time ready to enact, that they had, have, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the people of England, as once they bound the people of America, in all cases whatsoever, that especially of TAXATION. Amongst the other absurdities of the system, are those respecting instructions from constituents. It is the language of the law, the constitution, and common sense, that representatives, who are attornies, stewards, vicarious deputed persons, acting for others who have elected them so to do, are bound to obey instructions, provided only the instructions be not contrary to the moral law, or impossible of execution. But a certain shop-keeper who thinks himself more learned than the law, and more wise than the constitution, together with many others, treats the doctrine of instructions with insolent contempt both in theory and practice; that is to say, all instructions given by the people for their own benefit or self-defence; but then there are in this admirable system another sort of instructions which are to be implicitly obeyed. "When gentlemen,” says

Mr. Fox, "represent populous towns and cities, then "it is disputable whether they ought to obey their "voice, or follow the dictates of their own conscience; "but if they happen to represent a noble Lord, or a "noble Duke, then it becomes no longer a matter of " doubt; he is not considered as a man of honour who "does not implicitly obey the orders of his single con"stituent. He is to have no conscience, no liberty, "no discretion of his own; he is sent here by my Lord "this, or the Duke of that, and if he does not obey "the instructions that he receives, he is not to be con"sidered as a man of honour and a gentleman. Is a "gentleman to be permitted, without dishonour, to act "in opposition to the sentiments of the city of Lon"don, of the city of Westminster, or of Bristol; but if " he dare to disagree with the Duke, or Lord, or Ba"ronet, whose representative he is, that he must be "considered as unfit for the society of men of ho"nour? This is the chicane of tyranny and cor

ruption, and this, at the same time, is called repre"sentation. In a very great degree the county mem"bers are held in the same sort of thraldom; a num"ber of Peers possess an overweaning interest in the

county, and a gentleman is no longer permitted to "hold his situation, than as he acts agreeably to the "dictates of those powerful families." Under what

instructions the votes of the two hundred and sixteen, and the two hundred and twenty-nine were given, the nation, no doubt, have taken into their serious consideration; as I trust will be seen in the next popular meetings.

What then, my Lord, remains to be done? Shall we now speak, or for ever hold our peace? Shall we now act, or for ever remain a passive prey, to men who claim a tight to have their hands for ever _in our pockets, because forsooth they have purchased Gattons and Old Sarums? Shall we behold our countrymen the dupes of such reformers as a North, a Burke, a Pitt, and a Dundas, (now Lord Melville,) or advise them to take counsel of the CONSTITUTION, and their own understandings? If the duty of common defence be universal, it is yours, my Lord; it is mine, it is every