views directly opposite to their own, and sending him to increase the number of their enemies."

All these considerations strongly point out the very great caution which is necessary to be used in the difficult business of laying new restraints on the governing autho rity. Let therefore the less informed part of the people, whose zeal requires to be kept up by visible objects, look, if they choose, upon the crown as the only seat of the evils they are exposed to (mistaken notions on their part are less dangerous than political indifference, and they are more easily directed than roused); but at the same time, let the more enlightened part of the nation constantly remember, that the constitution only subsists by virtue of a proper equilibrium, by a line being drawn between power and liberty.

Made wise by the examples of several other nations, by those which the history of this very country affords, let the people, in the heat of their struggles in the defence of liberty, always take heed, only to reach, never to overshoot, the mark; only to repress, never to transfer and diffuse, power.

Amidst the alarms that may, at particular times, arise from the really awful authority of the crown, let it, on the one hand, be remembered, that even the power of the Tudors was opposed and subdued; and on the other hand, let it be looked upon as a fundamental maxim, that, whenever the prospect of personal power and independence on the governing authority, shall offer to the view of the members of the legislature, or in general of those men to whom the people must trust, even hope itself is destroyed. The Hollander, in the midst of a storm, though trusting to the experienced strength of the mounds that protect him, shudders no doubt at the sight of the foaming element that surrounds him; but they all gave themselves up for lost, when they thought the worm had got into their dykes.e

e Such new forms as may prove destructive of the real substance of a government, may be unwarily adopted, in the same manner as the superstitious notions and practices described in my Commentary on the History of the Flagellants, may be introduced into a religion, so as to entirely subvert the true spirit of it.

CHAP. XX.

A FEW ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE RIGHT OF TAXATION WHICH IS LODGED IN THE HANDS OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE. WHAT KIND OF DANGER THIS RIGHT MAY BE EXPOSED TO.

THE generality of men, or at least of politicians, seem to consider the right of taxing themselves, enjoyed by the English nation, as being no more than a means of securing their property against the attempts of the crown; while they overlook the nobler and more extensive efficiency of that privilege.

The right to grant subsidies to the crown, possessed by the people of England, is the safeguard of all their other liberties, religious and civil: it is a regular means conferred on them by the constitution, of influencing the motions of the executive power; and it forms the tie by which the latter is bound to them. In short, this privilege is a sure pledge in their hands, that their sovereign, who can dismiss their representatives at his pleasure, will never entertain thoughts of ruling without the assistance of these.

If through unforeseen events the crown could attain to be independent on the people in regard to its supplies, such is the extent of its prerogative, that, from that moment, all the means the people possess to vindicate their liberty would be annihilated. They would have no resource left, except indeed that uncertain and calamitous one, of an appeal to the sword; which is no more, after all, than what the most enslaved nations enjoy.

Let us suppose, for instance, that abuses of power should be committed, which, either by their immediate operation, or by the precedents they might establish, should undermine the liberty of the subject. The people, it will be said, would then have their remedy in the legislative power possessed by their representatives. The latter would, at the first opportunity, interfere, and frame such bills as would prevent the like abuses for the future. But here we must observe, that the assent of the sove

reign is necessary to make those bills become laws; and if, as we have just now supposed, he had no need of the support of the commons, how could they obtain his assent to laws thus purposely framed to abridge his authority?

Again, let us suppose, that, instead of contenting itself with making slow advances to despotism, the executive power should at once openly invade the liberty of the subject. Obnoxious men, printers for instance, or political writers, are destroyed, either by military violence, or, to do things with more security, with the forms of law. Then, it will be said, the representatives of the people would impeach the persons concerned in those measures. Though unable to reach a king who personally can do no wrong, they at least would lay hold of those men who were the immediate instruments of his tyrannical proceedings, and endeavour, by bringing them to condign punishment, to deter future judges or ministers from imitating them. All this I grant; and I will even add, that, circumstanced as the representatives of the people now are, and having to do with a sovereign who can enjoy no dignity without their assistance, it is most likely that their endeavours in the pursuits of such laudable objects would prove successful. But if, on the contrary, the king, as we have supposed, stood in no need of their assistance, and moreover knew that he should never want it, it is impossible to think that he would then suffer himself to remain a tame spectator of their proceedings. The impeachments thus brought by them would immediately prove the signal of their dismission; and the king would make haste, by dissolving them, both to revenge what would then be called the insolence of the commons, and to secure his ministers.

But even those are vain suppositions: the evil would reach much farther; and we may be assured that if ever the crown was to be in a condition to govern without the assistance of the representatives of the people, it would dismiss them for ever, and thus rid itself of an assembly, which, while it continued to be a clog on its power, could no longer be of any service to it. This is what Charles the first attempted to do, when he found his parliaments grew refractory, and what the kings of France

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really have done, with respect to the general estates of their kingdom.

And indeed, if we consider the extent of the prerogative of the king of England, and especially the circumstance of his completely uniting in himself all the executive and active powers in the state, we shall find that it is no exaggeration to say, that he has power sufficient to be as arbi. trary as the kings of France, were it not for the right of taxation, which, in England, is possessed by the people; and the only constitutional difference between the French and English nations, is, that the former can neither confer benefits on their sovereign, nor hunder his measures; while the latter, how extensive soever the prerogative of their king may be, can deny him the means of exerting it.

But here a most important observation is to be made; and I entreat the reader's attention to the subject. This right of granting subsidies to the crown, can only be effectual when it is exercised by one assembly alone. When several distinct assemblies have it equally in their power to supply the wants of a prince, the case becomes totally altered. The competition which so easily takes place between those different bodies, and even the bare consciousness which each entertains of its inability to hiuder the measures of the sovereign, render it impossible for them to make any effectual constitutional use of their privilege. "Those different parliaments or estates (to repeat the observation introduced in the former part of this work) having no means of recommending themselves to their sovereign, but their superior readiness in complying with his demands, vie with each other in granting what it would not only be fruitless, but even dangerous to refuse. And the king, on the other hand, soon comes to demand as a tribute, a gift which he is confident to obtain." In short, it may be laid down as a maxim, that when a sovereign is made to depend, in regard to his supplies, on more assemblies than one, he, in fact, depends upon none. And indeed the king of France is not independent on his people for his necessary supplies, any otherwise than by drawing the same from several different assemblies of their representatives; the latter have in appearance a right to refuse all his demands; and as the English call the grants they make to their kings, aids or subsidies, so

do the estates of the French provinces call theirs dons gratuits, or free gifts.

What is it, therefore, that constitutes the difference between the political situation of the French and English nations, since their rights thus seem to be the same? The difference lies in this, that there has never been in England more than one assembly that could supply the wants of the sovereign. This has always kept him in a state, not of a seeming, but of a real dependence on the representatives of the people for his necessary supplies; and how low soever the liberty of the subject may, at particular times, have sunk, they have always found themselves possessed of a most effectual means of restoring it, whenever they have thought proper so to do. Under Henry the eighth, for instance, we find the despotism of the crown to have been carried to an astonishing height; it was even enacted that the proclamations of the king should have the force of law; a thing which, even in France, never was so expressly declared: yet no sooner did the nation recover from its long state of supineness, than the exorbitant power of the crown was reduced within its constitutional bounds.

To no other cause than the disadvantage of their situation, are we to ascribe the low condition in which the deputies of the people in the assembly called the general estates of France, were always forced to remain.

Surrounded as they were by the particular estates of those provinces into which the kingdom had been formerly divided, they never were able to stipulate conditions with their sovereign; and instead of making their right of granting subsidies to the crown serve to gain them in the end a share in legislation, they ever remained confined to the naked privilege of "humble supplication and remonstrance."

Those estates, however, as all the great lords in France were admitted into them, began at length to appear dangerous; and as the king could in the mean time do without their assistance, they were set aside. But several of the particular estates of the provinces are preserved to this day: some, which for temporary reasons had been abolished, have been restored: nay, so manageable have popular assemblies been found by the crown, when it has to do with many, that the kind of government we mention