ments, and new inventions; the 7th, that it is the canker and ruin of many men's estates."

In the Essay to which I would implore the attention of all those who will shortly be called upon to discuss and consider of the propriety or impropriety of repealing the Usury Laws, each of these texts has its exemplification and appropriate comment. I would again sound the alarm against the proposed sidewind invasion of our social security,—the insane attempt to disturb the balance of the Constitution.Either immediately or remotely, every class of the community is interested in the preservation of the Usury Laws. They are founded in wisdom, and have been defended by it.

I trust that the minority in which Serjeant Onslow will be left on the question that his Bill be read a second time, will teach him and other wise men of the age a wholesome lesson of deference to the experience and practice of ages: though science may have been enriched, common sense was ever the same, and all must regret that any set of gentlemen should be brought to advocate innovation on principles to

which the test of time and experiment has imparted a character for certainty as incontrovertible as that of mathematical demonstration.

JULIUS.

SIR,

LETTER XIX.

то THE SAME.

May 3, 1821.

THOUGH my attention is too much engrossed, by a subject of a private nature, to permit of my entering into an argumentative contest with the supporters of the Grampound disfranchisement Bill, I still cannot refrain from giving vent to my feelings at the prospect of its merited rejection by the House of Lords.

The principle of the Bill I conceive to be. fraught with danger of the most alarming magnitude. The transferring power which it goes to recognize, neither constitutionally is or ought to be vested in the hands of Parliament. To. create an idea in men's minds that the Elective Franchise can be transferred from a rightful inheritor and his political posterity to an utter stranger, would be perilous beyond conception. The Elective Franchise ought to be in no point of view a transferrable franchise, a species of

property our Constitution cannot know, liable to be taken not only from its present possessor, but his children's children, by way of indiscriminate and excessive punishment, and to be transferred to a stranger without the slightest pretension to it either of legality or meritorious service. The King's writ may create this franchise where it does not exist; but no power, that shall not clash with every principle of our glorious Constitution, can take it from one body to transfer it to another. I much doubt whether, when once granted, it can ever constitutionally be extinguished. Posterity have an interest in its stability which present abuse ought not to extinguish. The delinquent should only suffer in his individual person or inte

rests.

Being at this moment limited as to time, and having already discussed the principle here brought under notice in my essay on the present crisis, which appeared some time since in your paper, I must conclude at once, with

Your's respectfully,

JULIUS.

SIB,

LETTER XX.

ΤΟ THE SAME.

May 17, 1821.

I VERY much regret to learn that the Earl of Liverpool, in his defence of the Grampound Disfranoliisement, advocated the propriety of the transfer of the right of Election. My constitutional notions, sir, revolt at the idea of the right of Election becoming any way, but by political inheritance, a transferrable right. His Lordship is correct in asserting that this right is held for the public good; he might have added, so also is the Kingly Office. But neither the one nor the other is open to such discretionary use or abuse as his unqualified assumption would lead us to imagine.

The legitimate basis of all representation is property. Property represented is property secure: the security of property is the foundation-stone of all the practical blessings of our invaluable Constitution. I cannot consent to