"be owned (now the only one remaining), of

conquest; and which one would wish to see "fall into total oblivion, unless it be reserved as "a solemn memento to remind us that our liber"ties are mortal, having once been destroyed by a foreign force."

When the king has declared his different intentions, he prorogues the parliament. Those bills which he has rejected remain without force : those to which he has assented become the expression of the will of the highest power acknowledged in England: they have the same binding force as the édits enregistrés have in France, and as the populiscita had in ancient Rome: in a word, they are laws. And though each of the constituent parts of the parliament might, at first, have prevented the existence of those laws, the united will of all the three is now necessary to repeal them.

CHAPTER V.

Of the Executive Power.

WHEN the parliament is prorogued or dissolved, it ceases to exist; but its laws still continue to be in force: the king remains charged

with the execution of them, and is supplied with the necessary power for that purpose.

It is, however, to be observed, that though, in his political capacity of one of the constituent parts of the parliament (that is, with regard to the share allotted to him in the legislative authority), the king is undoubtedly sovereign, and only needs allege his will when he gives or refuses his assent to the bills presented to him; yet, in the exercise of his powers of government, he is no more than a magistrate; and the laws, whether those that existed before him, or those to which, by his assent, he has given being, must direct his conduct, and bind him equally with his subjects.

I. The first prerogative of the king, in his capacity of supreme magistrate, has for its object the administration of justice.

1o. He is the source of all judicial power in the state he is the chief of all the courts of law, and the judges are only his substitutes: every thing is transacted in his name; the judgements must be with his seal, and are executed by his officers.

2o. By a fiction of the law, he is looked upon as the universal proprietor of the kingdom: he is in consequence deemed directly concerned in all offences; and, for that reason, prosecutions

are to be carried on in his name in the courts of law.

3o. He can pardon offences, that is, remit the punishment that has been awarded in conse quence of his prosecution.

II. The second prerogative of the king is, to be the fountain of honour, that is, the distributor of titles and dignities: he creates the peers of the realm, as well as bestows the different degrees of inferior nobility. He moreover disposes of the different offices, either in the courts of law, or elsewhere.

III. The king is the superintendant of commerce; he has the prerogative of regulating weights and measures; he alone can coin money, and can give a currency to foreign coin.

IV. He is the supreme head of the church. In this capacity he appoints the bishops, and the two archbishops; and he alone can convene the assembly of the clergy. This assembly is formed in England, on the model of the parliament: the bishops form the upper house: deputies from the dioceses, and from the several chapters, form the lower house: the assent of the king is likewise necessary to the validity of their acts, or canons; and the king can prorogue, or dissolve, the convocation.

V. He is, in right of his crown, the gene

ralissimo of all sea or land forces whatever; he alone can levy troops, equip fleets, build fortresses, and fill all the posts in them.

VI. He is, with regard to foreign nations, the representative and the depository of all the power and collective majesty of the nation; he sends and receives ambassadors; he contracts alliances; and has the prerogative of declaring war, and of making peace, on whatever conditions he thinks proper.

VII. In fine, what seems to carry so many powers to the height, is, its being a fundamental maxim, that THE KING CAN DO NO WRONG: which does not signify, however, that the king has not the power of doing ill, or, as it was pretended by certain persons in former times, that every thing he did was lawful; but only that he is above the reach of all courts of law whatever, and that his person is sacred and inviolable*.

* This maxim was introduced with a view of securing such a profound respect to the king's person and dignity, as might most effectually tend to promote a general obedience to the laws of which he is the administrator; and the danger of propagating an idea which cannot be strictly applicable to any human being, whether prince or peasant, is apparently obviated by the consideration of the full responsibility of the advisers of the sovereign, and the members of his cabinet. EDIT.

CHAPTER VI.

The Boundaries which the Constitution has set to the Royal Prerogative.

IN reading the foregoing enumeration of the powers with which the laws of England have intrusted the king, we are at a loss to reconcile them with the idea of a monarchy, which, we are told, is limited. The king not only unites in himself all the branches of the executive power; he not only disposes without control, of the whole military power in the state;—but he is, moreover, it seems, master of the law itself, since he calls up and dismisses, at his will, the legislative bodies. We find him, therefore, at first sight, invested with all the prerogatives that ever were claimed by the most absolute monarchs; and we are at a loss to find that liberty which the English seem so confident they possess.

But the representatives of the people still have, and that is saying enough,-they still have in their hands, now that the constitution is fully established, the same powerful weapon which enabled their ancestors to establish it. It is still from their liberality alone that the king can ob