attempts to introduce it, whatever might be the power of those who made them, or the circumstances in which they renewed their endeavours, have been strenuously opposed, and defeated.

Hence also arose that remarkable forbearance in the English laws, to use any cruel severity in the punishments which experience shewed it was necessary for the preservation of society to establish and the utmost vengeance of these laws, even against the most enormous offenders, never extends beyond the simple deprivation of life.

Nay, so anxious has the English legislature been to establish mercy, even to convicted offenders, as a fundamental principle of the government of England, that they made it an express article of that great public compact, which was framed at the important æra of the revolution, that "no cruel and unusual punishments should be used." They even endeavoured, by adding a clause for that purpose to the oath which kings were thenceforwards to take at their coronation, as it were to render it an everlasting obligation of English kings, to make justice to be "executed with mercy." 1 b

y The reader may on this subject see again the note in pag. 100 of this work, where the opposition is mentioued, that was made to the earl of Suffolk, and the duke of Exeter, when they ́attempted to introduce the practice of torture: this even was one of the causes for which the latter was afterwards impeached.-The reader is also referred to the note which follows that which has just been quoted, in which the solemn declaration is related which the judges gave against the practice of torture, in the case of Felton, who had assassinated the duke of Buckingham.

A very singular instance occurs in the history of the year 1605, of the care of the English legislature not to suffer precedents of cruel practices to be introduced. During the time that those concerned in the gun-powder plot were under sentence of death, a motion was made in the house of commons to petition the king, that the execution might be staid, in order to consider of some extraordinary punishment to be inflicted upon them: but this motion was rejected. A proposal of the same kind was also made in the house of lords, where it was dropped:-See the Parliamentary History of England, vol. v. anno 1605.

See the Bill of Rights, Art. x.-" Excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed; nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

b Those same dispositions of the English legislature, which have led them to take such precautions in favour even of convicted offenders, have still more engaged them to make provisions

CHAP. XVII.

A MORE INWARD VIEW OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT THAN HAS HITHERTO BEEN OFFERED TO THE READER.

TOTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ENGLISH MONARCHY, AS A MONARCHY, AND ALL THOSE WITH WHICH WE ARE ACQUAINTED.

THE doctrine constantly maintained in this work (and which has, I think, been sufficiently supported by facts and comparisons drawn from the history of other countries) is, that the remarkable liberty enjoyed by the English nation, is essentially owing to the impossibility under which their leaders, or in general all men of power among them, are placed, of invading and transferring to themselves any branch of the executive authority; which authority is exclusively vested, and firmly secured, in the crown. Hence the anxious care with which those men continue to watch the exercise of that authority. Hence their perseverance in observing every kind of engagement which themselves may have entered into with the rest of the people.

But here a consideration of a most important kind presents itself. How comes the crown, in England, thus constantly to preserve to itself, as we see it does, the whole executive authority in the state, and moreover to iuspire the great men in the nation with that conduct so advantageous to public liberty, which has just been mentioned ? All these are effects which we do not find, upon examination, that the power of crowns has hitherto been able to produce in other countries.

In all states of a monarchical form, we indeed see that those men whom their wealth, or their personal power of

in favour of such persons as are only suspected and accused of having committed offences of any kind. Hence the zeal with which they have availed themseives of every important occasion, such, for instance, as that of the revolution, to procure new confirmations to be given to the institution of the trial by jury, to the laws on imprisonment, and in general to that system of criminal jurisprudence, of which a description has been given in the first part of this work, to which I refer the reader.

any kind, has raised above the rest of the people, have formed combinations among themselves to oppose the power of the monarch. But their views, we must observe, in forming these combinations, were not by any means to set general and impartial limitations to the sovereign authority. They endeavoured to render themselves entirely independent of that authority; or even utterly to annihilate it, according to circumstances.

Thus we see that in all the states of ancient Greece, the kings were at last destroyed and exterminated. The same events happened in Italy, where in remote times there existed for a while several kingdoms, as we learn both from the ancient historians, and the poets. And in Rome, we even know the manner in which such a revolution was brought about.

In more modern times, we see the numerous monarchical sovereignties which had been raised in Italy on the ruins of the Roman empire, to have been successively destroyed by powerful factions; and circumstances of much the same nature have at different times taken place in the kingdoms established in the other parts of Europe.

In Sweden, Denmark, and Poland, for instance, we find that the nobles have commonly reduced their sovereigns to the condition of simple presidents over their assemblies, of mere ostensible heads of the government.

In Germany, and in France, countries where the monarchs being possessed of considerable demesnes, were better able to maintain their power than the princes just mentioned, the nobles waged war against them sometimes singly, and sometimes jointly; and events similar to these have successively happened in Scotland, Spain, and the modern kingdoms of Italy.

In fine, it has only been by means of standing forces that the sovereigns of most of the kingdoms we have mentioned, have been able in a course of time to assert the prerogatives of their crown. And it is only by continuing to keep up such forces, that, like the eastern monarchs, and indeed like all the monarchs that ever existed, they continue to be able to support their au thority.

How therefore can the crown of England, without the assistance of any armed force, maintain, as it does, its numerous prerogatives? how can it, under such circum

stances, preserve to itself the whole executive power in the state? For here we must observe, the crown in England does not derive any support from what regular forces it has at its disposal; and if we doubted this fact, we need only look to the astonishing subordination in which the military is kept to the civil power, to become convinced that the English king is not indebted to his army for the preservation of his authority."

If we could suppose that the armies of the kings of Spain, or of France, for instance, were, through some very extraordinary circumstance, all to vanish in one night, the power of those sovereigns, we must not doubt, would, ere six months, be reduced to a mere shadow. They would immediately behold their prerogatives, however formidable they may be at present, invaded and dismembered: b and supposing that regular governments continued to exist, they would be reduced to have little more influence in them, than the doges of Venice, or of Genoa, possess in the governments of those republics.c

How, therefore, to repeat the question once more, which is one of the most interesting that can occur in politics, how can the crown in England, without the assistance of any armed force, avoid those dangers to which all other sovereigns are exposed?

How can it, without any such force, accomplish even incomparably greater works than those sovereigns, with their powerful armies, are, we find, in a condition to perform? How can it bear that universal effort, unknown in other monarchies, which, we have seen, is continually and openly exerted against it? How can it even continue to resist it so powerfully as to preclude all individuals whatever, from ever entertaining any views besides those of setting just and general limitations to the exercise of its authority? How can it enforce the laws upon all subjects, indifferently, without injury or danger to itself? How can it, in fine, impress the minds of all the great men in the state with such a lasting jealousy of its power,

a Henry VIII. kept no standing army.

As was the case in the several kingdoms into which the Spanish monarchy was formerly divided; and, in not very remote times, in France itself.

Or than the kings of Sweden were allowed to enjoy, before the last revolution in that country.

as to necessitate them, even in the exercise of their undoubted rights and privileges, to continue to court and deserve the affection of the rest of the people?

Those great men, I shall answer, who even in quiet times prove so formidable to other monarchs, are in England divided into two assemblies; and such, it is necessary to add, are the principles upon which this division is made, that from it results, as a necessary consequence, the solidity and indivisibility of the power of the crown. The reader may perceive that I have led him, in the se of this work, much beyond the line within which writers on the subject of government have confined themselves; or rather, that I have followed a track entirely different from that which those writers have pursued.But as the observation just made on the stability of the power of the crown in England, and the cause of it, is new in its kind, so do the principles from which its truth is to be demonstrated, totally differ from what is commonly looked upon as the foundation of the science of politics. To lay these principles here before the reader, in a manner completely satisfactory to him, would lead us into philosophical discussions on what really constitutes the basis of governments and power amongst mankind, both extremely long, and in a great measure foreign to the subject of this book. I shall therefore content myself with proving the above observations by facts; which is more, after all, than political writers usually undertake to do with regard to their speculations.

As I chiefly proposed to shew how the extensive liberty the English enjoy, is the result of the peculiar frame of their government, and occasionally to compare the same with the republican form, I even had at first intended to confine myself to that circumstance, which both constitutes the essential difference between those two forms of government, and is the immediate cause of English liberty; I mean the having placed all the executive authority in the state out of the hands of those in whom the people trust. With regard to the remote cause of that same liberty, that is to say, the stability of the power of the crown by which this executive authority is so secured, I should perhaps have been silent, had I not found it absolutely necessary to mention it here, in order to obviate the objections which the more reflecting part of my read