From all the facts before-mentioned, it is evident that the power of the crown, in England, rests upon foundations quite peculiar to itself, and that its security and strength are obtained

nagement of it: the less so, as his measures for that pur pose must often be contradictory to those he is to pursue with the rest of the people.

If a king of England, wishing to set aside the present constitution, and to assimilate his power to that of the other sovereigns of Europe, should do me the honour to consult me as to the means of obtaining success, I would recommend to him, as his first preparatory step, and before his real project is even suspected, to disband his army, keeping only a strong guard, not exceeding twelve hundred men. This done, he might, by means of the weight and advantages of his place, set himself about undermining such constitutional laws as he dislikes; using as much temper as he can, that he may have the more time to proceed. And when at length things should be brought to a crisis, then I would advise him to form another army, out of those friends or class of the people whom the turn and incidents of the preceding contests will have linked and riveted to his interest; with this army he might now take his chance: the rest would depend on his generalship, and even in a great measure on his bare reputation in that respect.

In offering my advice to the king of England, I would, however, conclude with observing to him, that his situation is as advantageous to the full as that of any king upon earth, and, upon the whole, that all the advantages which can arise from the success of his plan cannot make it worth his while to undertake it.

by means totally different from those by which the same advantages are so incompletely procured, and so dearly paid for, in other coun

tries.

It is without the assistance of an armed force that the crown, in England, is able to manifest that dauntless independence on particular individuals, or whole classes of them, with which it discharges its legal functions and duties. Without the assistance of an armed force, it is able to counterbalance the extensive and unrestrained freedom of the people, and to exert that resisting strength which constantly keeps increasing in a superior proportion to the force by which it is opposed, that balasting power by which, in the midst of boisterous winds and gales, it recovers and rights again the vessel of the state*.

It is from the civil branch of its office the

*There are many circumstances in the English government, which those persons who wish for speculative meliorations, such as parliamentary reform, or other changes of a like kind, do not perhaps think of taking into consideration. If so, they are, in their proceedings, in danger of meddling with a number of strings, the existence of which they do not suspect. While they only mean reformation and improvement, they are in danger of removing the talisman on which the existence of the fabric depends, or, like the daughter of king Nisus, of cutting off the fatal hair with which the fate of the city is connected.

crown derives that strength by which it subdues even the military power, and keeps it in a state of subjection to the laws, unexampled in any other country. It is from a happy arrangement of things it derives that uninterrupted stea diness, that invisible solidity, which procure to the subject both so certain a protection, and so extensive a freedom. It is from the nation it receives the force with which it governs the nation. Its resources are official energy, and not compulsion,-free action, and not fear, and it continues to reign through the political drama, the struggle of the voluntary passions of those who pay obedience to it*.

* Many persons, satisfied with seeing the elevation and upper parts of a building, think it immaterial to give a look under ground and notice the foundation. Those readers, therefore, who choose, may consider the long chapter that has just been concluded, as a kind of foreign digression, or parenthesis, in the course of the work.

[The author was apprehensive that this chapter would not be perfectly understood, as being too refined for ordinary readers. It may therefore seem to require, at its close, some illustrative remarks.

In governments, much depends on public opinion: even fancy, it may be said, has no small effect in the support of national tranquillity; and the popular persuasion, more prevalent in this country than in any other, of the founda tion of the throne on the basis of public good, and of the

CHAPTER XVIII.

How far the Examples of Nations who have lost their Liberty are applicable to England.

EVERY

government (those writers observe, who have treated on these subjects) containing

identity of interest between the king and the people, has an extensive and authoritative influence. A prince who is supposed to govern for the general benefit,-who administers the laws to freemen, instead of tyrannising over slaves, -who, though ostensibly the supreme ruler of the state, is only a branch of that legislature which includes the paramount power of the nation,-seems so far to command the loyalty and ensure the submission of the people, as not to require the aid of a dependent army, or those other means of terror to which despotic monarchs have recourse. The ties between such a prince and the nation seem to be so much stronger than the union between the government and the people in other countries ;-his sense of his own popularity, and the opinion which his subjects entertain, not only of his good dispositions, but of the policy of moderation and forbearance on his part, have such a tendency to the production of harmony and order ;-and so powerful is the ellicacy of a system of law, calculated for the protection of all classes of the community;-that a government of this kind, from obvious causes, and perhaps also from some mysterious circumstances, may be supposed to possess a very high degree of strength and stability. EDIT.]

within itself the efficient cause of its ruin, a cause which is essentially connected with those very circumstances that had produced its prosperity; the advantages attending the English government cannot therefore, according to these writers, exempt it from that latent defect which is secretly working its ruin; and M. de Montesquieu, giving his opinion both of the cause and the effect, says, that the English constitution. will lose its liberty, will perish: "Have not "Rome, Lacedæmon, and Carthage, perished? "It will perish when the legislative power shall "have become more corrupt than the execu"tive."

Though I do by no means pretend that any human establishment can escape the fate to which we see every thing in nature is subject, nor am so far prejudiced by the sense I entertain of the great advantages of the English government as to reckon among them that of eternity, I will, however, observe in general, that as it differs by its structure and resources from all those with which history makes us acquainted, so it cannot be said to be liable to the same dangers. To judge of one from the other, is to judge by analogy where no analogy is to be found and my respect for the author I have quoted will not preclude me from saying that