and here we must observe another circumstance, highly advantageous, as well as peculiar to England.

England was not, like France, an aggregation of a number of different sovereignties: it formed but one state, and acknowledged but one master, one general title. The same laws, the same kind of dependence, consequently the same notions, the same interests, prevailed throughout the whole. The extremities of the kingdom could, at all times, unite to give a check to the exertions of an unjust power. From the river Tweed to Portsmouth, from Yar mouth to the Land's-end, all was in motion: the agitation increased from the distance like the rolling waves of an extensive sea; and the monarch, left to himself, and destitute of resources, saw himself attacked on all sides by an universal combination of his subjects.

No sooner was the standard set up against John, than his very courtiers forsook him. In this situation, finding no part of his kingdom less irritated against him than another, having no detached province which he could engage in his defence by promises of pardon, or of particular concessions, the trivial though never-failing resources of government, he was compelled, with seven of his attendants, all that remained with him, to submit himself to the disposal of his subjects; and he signed at Runing Mead the charter of the forest, together with the famous charter, which, from its superior and extensive importance, is denominated magna chartu.

By the former, the most tyrannical part of the forest laws was abolished; and by the latter, the rigour of the feudal laws was greatly mitigated in favour of the lords. But this charter did not stop there; conditions were also stipulated in favour of the numerous body of the people, who had concurred to obtain it, and who claimed, with sword in hand, a share in that security it was meant to establish. It was hence instituted by the great charter, that the same services which were remitted in favour of the barons, should be in like manner remitted in favour of their vassals. This charter moreover established an equality of weights and measures throughout England; it

b Anno 1215.

exempted the merchants from arbitrary imposts, and gave them liberty to enter and depart the kingdom at pleasure : it even extended to the lowest orders of the state, since it enacted, that the villain, or bondman, should not be subject to the forfeiture of his implements of tillage. Lastly, by the twenty-ninth article of the same charter, it was enacted, that no subject should be exiled, or in any shape whatever molested, either in his person or effects, otherwise than by judgment of his peers, and according to the law of the land: an article so important, that it may be said to comprehend the whole end and design of political societies; and from that moment the English would have been a free people, if there were not an immense distance between the making of laws, and the observing of them.

But though this charter wanted most of those supports which were necessary to insure respect to it, though it did not secure to the poor and friendless any certain and legal methods of obtaining the execution of it, (provisions which numberless transgressions alone could, in process of time, point out,) yet it was a prodigious advance towards the establishment of public liberty. Instead of the general maxims respecting the rights of the people and the duties of the prince, (maxims against which ambition perpetually contends, and which it sometimes even openly and absolutely denies,) here was substituted a written law, that is, a truth admitted by all parties, which no longer required the support of argument. The rights and privileges of the individual, as well in his person as in his property, became settled axioms. The great charter, at first enacted with. so much solemnity, and afterwards confirmed at the beginning of every succeeding reign, was, as it were, a general banner perpetually set up for the union of all classes of the people; and the foundation was laid on

Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, vel dissesietur de libero tenemento suo, vel libertatibus vel liberis consuetudinibus suis; aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur; nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terræ. Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differenius, justitiam vel rectum," Magna Chart. cap. xxix.

which those equitable laws were to rise, which offer the same assistance to the poor and weak, as to the rich and powerful.d

Under the long reign of Henry the third, the differences which arose between the king and the nobles, rendered England a scene of confusion. Amidst the vicissitudes which the fortune of war produced in their mutual conflicts, the people became still more and more sensible of their importance, and so did in consequence both the king and the barons also. Alternately courted by both parties, they obtained a confirmation of the great charter, and even the addition of new privileges, by the statutes of Merton and of Marlebridge. But I hasten to reach the grand epoch of the reign of Edward the first; a prince, who, from his numerous and prudent laws, has been denominated the English Justinian.

Possessed of great natural talents, and succeeding a prince whose weakness and injustice had rendered his reign unhappy, Edward was sensible that nothing but a strict administration of justice could, on the one side, curb a nobility whom the troubles of the preceding reign had rendered turbulent, and on the other, appease and conciliate the people, by securing the property of individuals. To this end, he made jurisprudence the principal object of his attention; and so much did it improve under his care, that the mode of process became fixed and settled; judge Hale

a The reader, to be more fully convinced of the reality of the causes to which the liberty of England has been here ascribed, as well as of the truth of the observations made at the same time on the situation of the people of France, needs only to compare the great charter, so extensive in its provisions, and in which the barons stipulated in favour even of the bondman, with the treaty concluded between Lewis the eleventh, and several of the princes and peers of France, intitled, A Treaty made at St. Maur, between the dukes of Normandy, Calabre, Bretagne, Bourbonnois, Auvergne, Nemours; the counts of Charolois, Armagnac, and St. Pol, and other princes of France, risen up in support of the public good, of the one part; and king Lewis the eleventh of the other, October 29, 1465. In this treaty, which was made in order to terminate a war which was called a war for the public good, (pro bono publico,) no provision was made but concerning the particular power of a few lords: not a word was inserted in favour of the people. This treaty may be seen at large in the Pieces Justificatives annexed to the Mémoires de Philippe de Comines.

going even so far as to affirm, that the English laws arrived at once, et quasi per saltum, at perfection, and that there has been more improvement made in them during the first thirteen years of the reign of Edward, than all the ages since his time have done.

But what renders this æra particularly interesting is, that it affords the first instance of the admission of the deputies of towns and boroughs into parliament.

Edward, continually engaged in wars, either against Scotland or on the continent, seeing moreover his demesnes considerably diminished, was frequently reduced to the most pressing necessities. But though, in consequence of the spirit of the times, he frequently indulged himself in particular acts of injustice, yet he perceived that it was impossible to extend a general oppression over a body of nobles, and a people, who so well knew how to unite in a common cause. In order to raise subsidies therefore, he was obliged to employ a new method, and to endeavour to obtain through the consent of the people, what his predecessors had hitherto expected from their own power. The sheriffs were ordered to invite the towns and boroughs of the different counties to send deputies to parliament; and it is from this æra that we are to date the origin of the house of commons.f

It must be confessed, however, that these deputies of the people were not, at first, possessed of any considerable authority. They were far from enjoying those extensive privileges which, in these days, constitute the house of commons a collateral part of the government: they were in those times called up only to provide for the wants of the king, and approve of the resolutions taken by him and the assembly of the lords. But it was nevertheless a great

e I mean their legal origin; for the earl of Leicester, who had usurped the power during part of the preceding reign, had called such deputies up to parliament before."

f Anno 1295.

8 The end mentioned in the summons sent to the lords, was, de arduis negotiis regni tractaturi, & consilium impensuri: the summons sent to the commons was, ad faciendum & consentiendum. The power enjoyed by the latter was even inferior to what they might have expected from the summons sent to them: "In most of the ancient statutes they are not so much as named; and in several, even when they are mentioned, they are distinguished

point gained, to have obtained the right of uttering their complaints, assembled in a body and in a legal way-to have acquired, instead of the dangerous resource of insurrections, a lawful and regular mean of influencing the motions of the government, and thenceforth to have become a part of it. Whatever disadvantage might attend the station at first allotted to the representatives of the people, it was soon to be compensated by the preponderance the people necessarily acquire, when they are enabled to act and move with method, and especially with concert.h

And indeed this privilege of naming representatives, insignificant as it might then appear, presently manifested itself by the most considerable effects. In spite of his reluctance, and after many evasions unworthy of so great a king, Edward was obliged to confirm the great charter; he even confirmed it eleven times in the course of his reign. It was moreover enacted, that whatever should be done contrary to it, should be null and void; that it should be read twice a year in all cathedrals; and that the penalty of excommunication should be denounced against any one who should presume to violate it.i

At length, he converted into an established law a privilege of which the English had hitherto had only a precarious enjoyment; and, in the statute de Tallagio non concedendo, he decreed, that no tax should be laid, nor impost levied, without the joint consent of the lords and commons.k A most important statute this, which, in

as petitioners merely, the assent of the lords being expressed in contradistinction to the request of the commons." See on this subject the Preface to the Collection of the Statutes at large, by Ruff head, and the authorities quoted therein.

France had indeed also her assemblies of the general estates of the kingdom, in the same manner as England had her parlia ment; but then it was only the deputies for the towns within the particular domain of the crown, that is, for a very small part of the nation, who, under the name of the "third estate," were admitted in those estates; and it is easy to conceive that they acquired no great influence in an assembly of sovereigns who gave the law to their lord paramount. Hence, when these disappeared, the maxim became immediately established, The will of the king is the will of the law. In old French, Que veut le roy, si reut le loy.

¡Confirmationes Chartarum, cap. 2, 3, 4.

"Nullum tallagium vel auxilium, per nos, vel hæredes nostros, in regno nostro ponatur seu levetur, sine voluntate & assens