The Speech of Drufus Draco (Mr.D-g) concluded from our laft. See p. 244.

T

we

HE best inheritance, Mr. Prefident, which can poffibly bequeath our race is freedom; in robbing our conftituents of this inestimable bleffing, we in fact take it away from our defcendants, and make the creatures of their own hands the masters of their for tunes and their lives. It is a plaufible argument, that the voice of the nation is only to be heard in this affembly; but plaufibility does not neceffarily imply justice, nor does this af fembly conftitute a real reprefentative of the kingdom. The metropolis for inftance, which contains at least a fixth of the people, has no more than four members; and many of the principal trading towns are wholly without a member: when this is recollected, Mr. Prefident, and when it is moreover recollected, that the inadequacy of parliamentary representation is a fubject of univerfal complaint, there is but a flender bafis for afferting that our voice is the voice of the kingdom, and that as fuch it thould be decifive in every deliberation.

I readily grant, that the fenfe of this affembly, whether agreeable or difagreeable to the fenfe of the people, is generally fubmitted to, and that the nation will endure much before it attempts to fhake the load of oppreffion from its fhoulders. The public is an unwieldy body; its operations are flow, and nothing can roufe it into action, but the most urgent call of neceflity; yet, for this very reafon, when it does move, its motion is a very ferious circumstance; the more the

June, 1771.

fubject is inclined to bear, the more we should be alarmed at his fenfibility; when his patience is exhausted, we may conclude that his reafons for difcontent are ample, and in proportion as he fhews himself unwilling to murmur, in the fame proportion we fhould thew our readiness to remove every fource of his diffatisfaction.

The friends of the administration, fir, befides the fallacious mode of reafoning which I have here expofed, recur to another fpecious fallacy to countenance the oppreffion of government. We are told, Mr. Prefident, that the various petitions prefented to the throne for the diffolution of this aflembly, are by no means to be regarded, because the majority of counties have not petitioned for this purpofe. On the contrary, it is inferred that as the majority of counties have been filent, the complaints of those who have really talked of grievances must be confidered only as the effufions of faction, fomented by the interefted, and fupported by the misled; that they are on the one hand excited by ambition, and on the other compofed of ignorance, but on both repugnant to reafon, and injurious to the real happiness of the kingdom.Superficial enquirers into the nature of public tranfactions, Mr. Prefident, may be deluded by a logic of this kind, yet it will have very little weight with thofe who have made a clofe examination into facts.-The bulk of the people, fir, is not to be estimated, by the extent of miles, or the multiplication of counties. The metropolis, as I have already obferved, contains in itself a fixth of our inhabitants, and if we reckon the petitioners, by the more rational criterion of the land-tax, we shall find that

002

they

they exceed the fuppofed friends of the miniftry in numbers, by fo confiderable a fum as twenty-five thoufand pounds a year. Why then are we to imagine, that the language of the late petitions is not the language cf our constituents at large? Are there no murmurs, no difcontents in the filent counties? Or have our gracious rulers practifed no arts, to keep their unneafness from the ear of their fovereign? We may labour to deceive ourfelves, Mr. Prefident, but our labours to deceive the public will be ineffectual. The minifter will not meet that complaifance without doors, which he is fo certain of meeting within the very motion before the houfe is a proof of our being generally abhorred. The magiftrates of London would not dare to refift our refolutions, if the nation was not evidently warmed with their fentiments, and thoroughly perfuaded, that the existence of their freedom depends upon a determined oppofition to the unwarrantable exercife of our authority. Perhaps, fir, it may be faid, our privileges are the privileges of thofe we reprefent, and that the political importance of the elector must be diminished, if the importance of the elected undergoes the fmalleft diminution. Let me again exhort gentlemen not to deceive themfelves Whenever the intereft of the reprefentative and the reprefented are one, their views must be one alfo. At prefent however, their interefts are as contrary as their views, and nothing but the very foul of abfurdity could poffibly affirm, that our encroach. ment on the rights of the fubject, was abfolutely requifite for the maintenance of his neceffary weight in the conftitution.

Gentlemen are exceedingly indignant, Mr. Prefident, at the fuppofed temerity of the two magiftrates, now labouring under the difplcature of the houfe; and afk, with a tone of refentful furprise, if the corporation of London is to be independent of the commons regularly affembled in parliament? Why not, fir, if the law has made then fo? If the law has indulged the citizens with particular immunities, why are thefe immunities to be invaded? We fit here for the profefied purpofe of guarding the

laws, not for the profeffed purpose of trampling them under foot: we ourfelves are the creatures, not the maf ters of the conftitution: we have no existence but a legal one; we can have no existence but a legal one, and confequently it is as weak as it is wicked in us to overleap the eftablished bounds of legality.

Here Drufus Draco ending his fpeech, Lucius Cibo (Mr. C-F—) delivered him/elf to this effect, on the oppofite fide of the queftion. Mr. Prefident, Sir,

NOTWITHSTANDING

what

the honourable member, who spuke laft, has been pleafed to urge relative to the divided views, and the divided interefts of the Commons and the people, he has not been able to convince me, that the authority of this houfe is not the beft fecurity of the national freedom; nor able to convince me how our welfare can poffibly be reparated from the welfare of the public.

The honourable gentleman is pleafed to fay, that the voice of this houfe is not the voice of the people, and fets the language of clamour without doors in oppofition to cur deliberations, as if we were not particularly appointed by the conflitution, the only revers of the national mind, the only judges of what ought to be the fentiments of the kingdom. I fay, fir, what ought to be, because many laws are highly neceffary for the public fafety, which excite the difcontent of the people. If we were never to país a law, till it obtained the fanction of popular approbation, we fhould never have a fettled revenue to fupport either the establishment of our domelic policy, or to defend us against the invations of a foreign enemy. You never fee a tax inftitated, Mr., Prefident, without hearing loud impeachments of parliamentary integrity. The uninform ed zealots, who feem animated with an enthufiaftic love for their country, generally charge us with having fold them to the minifter; and we are accufed of venality for impofing those burdens, which we know to be ablolutely neceffary, and to which we our felves, if the House of Commons is fuppofed an affembly of the fint property in the state, muft always be the largest contributors.

It will poffibly appear ftrange, that a representative of the people fhould not deem it more meritorious to comply with the withes of his contituent, than to counteract them; and it may poflibly be urged, that it is his duty, upon all occafions, to act in conformity to thofe withes, however repugnant they may be to the fenfe of his own conviction. I will not differ with the honourable gentleman about the idea he annexes to his term of the people; I will, for argument fake, now, that nine tenths of the people are this moment in oppofition to government. But I fhall at the fame 6me insit, that we have higher obligatio is to justice, than to our conftituents: we are chofen the delegates of the British electors, fir, for falutay, not for pernicious parpofes; to guard, not to invade the conftitution: o keep the privileges of the very freewe re rent, as much within their proper limits, as to controul any unwarrantable exertion of the regal authority. We are bound to promote their true interests in prefe. tence to the deareft defires of their hearts, and the conftitution makes us the fole arbiters of thofe interefts, notwithstanding the imaginary infalli bility of the people.

To hew the propriety of this reafoning, Mr. Prefident, let us fuppofe that the people, instead of this mixed monarchy, which we celebrate as equally the pride and envy of the univerfe, fhould inftruct us, their reprefentatives, to introduce a democratical form of government; fhould we act as good fubjects to our king, or as faithful guardians to our country, if we complied with fo dangerous an advice? We have fworn to maintain this conftitution in its prefent form; to maintain the privileges of parliament as a neceffary part of that confritution, and neither to encroach upon the legal jurifdiction of the peers, nor the juft prerogatives of the fovereign. Shall we then do what we are fenfible is wrong, becaufe the people defire it? Shall we facrifice our reafon, our honour, and our confcience, for fear of incurring the popular refentment, and while we are appointed to watch the Hefperian fruit of liberty with a dragon's eye, be ourselves

5

the only flaves of the whole community?

Perhaps the honourable gentleman will tell me, that nothing but the "foul of abfurdity" could fufpect the people of a defign against their own happines: fir, I do not fufpect the people of any fuch defign, but I fufpect their capacity to judge of their true happiness; I know they are generally credulous, and generally uninformed; captivated by appearances, while they neglect the most important effentials, and always ridiculouf ly ready to believe, that thofe men, who have the greatest reafon from their extensive property, to be anxi ous for the public fafety, are always concerting measures for the oppreffion of the own potterity. If I mif reprefent the people, whence fpring thofe eternal terrors of being ruined, in the midit of the most unbounded profperity? Have not we tottered, if popular clamour must be credited, upon the verge of ruin, fince the first moment of our existence as a nation. Indeed, at the Revolution, patriotism itself acknowledges we were faved; yet from that period let us only read the works of our greatest politicians, and we fhall find ourfelves utterly undone. Even our deliverer was fcarcely fented upon the throne, when the grateful people, whofe liberties he had reftored, began to confider him as an enemy to the constitution. In every fucceeding reign we were destroyed, and at this moment, while exulting in all the pride of a felicity never known to our ancestors, we are plunged in the deepest abyss of destruction.

Look round, Mr. Prefident, furvey the monuments of our ruin, and then afk what juftice is due to the reprefentations of our political fcreechowls? Obferve the magnificence of our metropolis-the extent of our empire-the immenfity of our commerce

and the opulence of our people: Survey the unfortunate citizens of London, fir, and you will find every fhop-keeper of any confideration, with his elegant villa, and his variety of equipages. Confider only the prefent oppofition of the city to the whole body of the British legislature, and then judge bow it must be oppreffed.

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