sively, had at last recourse to plot and assassination; and expedients of a similar sudden violent kind are the settled methods adopted by the eastern monarchs, nor is it very sure that they can always easily do otherwise.

Even in the present monarchies of Europe, notwithstanding the awful force by which they are outwardly supported, a discarded minister is the cause of more or less anxiety to the governing authority; especially if, through the length of time he has been in office, he happens to have acquired a considerable degree of influence. He is generally sent and confined to one of his estates in the country, which the crown names to him: he is not allowed to appear at court, nor even in the metropolis; much less is he suffered to appeal to the people in loud complaints, to make public speeches to the great men in the state, and intrigue among them, and, in short, to vent his resentment by those bitter, and sometimes desperate methods, which, in the constitution of this country, prove in a great measure harmless.

But a dissolution of the parliament, that is, the dismis sion of the whole body of the great men in the nation, assembled in a legislative capacity, is a circumstance in the English government, in a much higher degree remarkable and deserving our notice than the depriving any single individual, however powerful, of his public employments. When we consider in what an easy and complete manner such a dissolution is effected, in England, we must become convinced that the power of the crown bears upon foundations of very uncommon, though perhaps hidden, strength, especially if we attend to the several facts that take place in other countries.

In France, for example, we find the crown, notwithstanding the immense outward force by which it is surrounded, to use the utmost caution in its proceedings towards the parliament of Paris; an assembly only of a judiciary nature, without any legislative authority or avowed claim, and which, in short, is very far from having the same weight in the kingdom of France as the English parliament has in England. The king never repairs to that assembly, to signify his intentions, or hold a lit de justice, without the most overawing circumstances of military apparatus and preparation, constantly choosing

to make his appearance among them rather as a general than as a king.

And when the late king, having taken a serious alarm at the proceedings of this parliament, at length resolved upon their dismission, he fenced himself, as it were, with his army; and military messengers were sent with every circumstance of secrecy and dispatch, who, at an early part of the day, and at the same hour, surprised each member in his own house, causing them, severally, to retire to distant parts of the country which were prescribed to them, without allowing them time to consider, much less to meet and hold any consultation.

But the person who is invested with the kingly office in England has need of no other weapon, no other artil. lery, than the civil insignia of his dignity to effect a dissolution of the parliament. He steps into the midst of them, telling them that they are dissolved; and they are dissolved: -he tells them that they are no longer a parliament, and they are no longer so. Like the wand of Popilius, a dissolution instantly puts a stop to their warmest debates and most violent proceedings. The peremptory words by which it is expressed have no sooner met their ears, than all their legislative faculties are benumbed: though they may still be sitting on the same benches, they look no longer on themselves as forming an assembly; they no longer consider each other in the light of associates or of colleagues. As if some strange kind of weapon, or a sudden magical effort, had been exerted in the midst of them, all the bonds of their union are cut off; and they hasten away, without having so much as the thought of continuing for a single minute the duration of their assembly.

To all these observations concerning the peculiar solidity of the authority of the crown in England, I shall add another that is supplied by the whole series of the English history; which is, that though bloody broils and disturb ances have often taken place in England, and war been often made against the king, yet it has scarcely ever been done, but by persons who positively and expressly laid claim to the crown. Even while Cromwell contended with an armed force against Charles the First, it was in the king's own name that he waged war against him.

The same objection might be expressed in a more general

manner, and with strict truth, by saying, that no war has been waged, in England, against the governing authority, - except upon national grounds; that is to say, either when the title to the crown has been doubtful, or when general complaints, either of a political or religious kind, have arisen from every part of the nation. As instances of such complaints, may be mentioned those that gave rise to the war against king John, which ended in the passing of the Great Charter; the civil wars in the reign of Charles the First; and the Revolution of the year 1689. From the facts just mentioned, it may also be observed as a conclusion, that the crown cannot depend on the great security we have been describing, any longer than it continues to fulfil its engagements to the nation, and to respect those laws which form the compact between it and the people. And the imminent dangers, or at least the alarms and perplexities, in which the kings of England have constantly involved themselves, whenever they have attempted to struggle against the general sense of the nation, manifestly shew, that all that has been above observed, concerning the security and remarkable stability somehow annexed to their office, is to be understood, not of the capricious power of the man, but of the lawful authority of the head of the state.

Second part of the chapter.

THERE is certainly a very great degree of singularity in all the circumstances we have been describing here: those persons who are acquainted with the history of other countries cannot but remark with surprise, that stability of the power of the English crown-that mysterious solidity, that in ward binding strength, with which it is able to carry on with certainty its legal operations, amidst the clamorous struggle and uproar with which it is commonly surrounded, and without the medium of any armed threatening force. To give a demonstration of the manner in which all these things are brought to bear and operate, it is not, as I said before, my design to attempt here: the principles from which such demonstration is to be derived, suppose an in

quiry into the nature of man, and of human affairs, which rather belongs to philosophy (though to a branch hitherto unexplored) than to politics; at least, such an inquiry certainly lies out of the sphere of the common science of politics. However, I had a very material reason for introducing all the above-mentioned facts concerning the peculiar stability of the governing authority of England, inasmuch as they lead to an observation of a most important political nature; which is, that this stability allows several essential branches of English liberty to take place, which, without it, could not exist. For there is a very essential consideration to be made in every science, though speculators are sometimes apt to lose sight of it, which is this-in order that things may have existence, they must be possible; in order that political regulations of any kind may obtain their effect, they must imply no direct contradiction, either open or hidden, to the nature of things, or to the other circumstances of the government. In reasoning from this principle, we shall find that the stability of the governing executive authority in England, and the weight it gives to the whole machine of the state, have actually enabled the English nation, considered as a free nation, to enjoy several advantages which would really have been totally unattainable in the other states we have mentioned in former chapters, whatever degree of public virtue we might even suppose to have belonged to the men who acted in those states, as the advisers of the people, or, in general, who were intrusted with the business of framing the laws.

One of these advantages resulting from the solidity of the government is, the extraordinary personal freedom which all ranks of individuals in England enjoy at the expense of the governing authority. In the Roman commonwealth, for instance, we behold the senate invested with a number of powers totally destructive of the liberty of the citizens: and the continuance of these powers was, no doubt, in a great measure, owing to the treacherous remissness of those men to whom the people trusted for repressing them, or even to their determined resolution not to abridge those prerogatives. Yet, if we attentively consider the constant situation of affairs in that republic, we shall find, that though we should suppose those persons to

have been ever so truly attached to the cause of the people, it would not really have been possible for them to procure to the people an entire security. The right enjoyed by the senate, of suddenly naming a dictator with a power unrestrained by any law, or of investing the consuls with an authority of much the same kind, and the power it at times assumed of making formidable examples of arbitrary justice,were resources of which the republic could not, perhaps, with safety, have been totally deprived: and though these expedients frequently were used to destroy the just liberty of the people, yet they were also very often the means of preserving the commonwealth.

Upon the same principle we should possibly find that the ostracism, that arbitrary method of banishing citizens, was a necessary resource in the republic of Athens. A Venetian noble would perhaps also confess, that, however terrible the state inquisition, established in his republic, may be even to the nobles themselves, yet it would not be prudent entirely to abolish it. And we do not know, but a minister of state in France, though ever so virtuous and moderate a man, would say the same with regard to secret imprisonments, the lettres de cachet, and other arbitrary deviations from the settled course of law, which often take place in that kingdom, and in the other monarchies of Europe. No doubt, if he was the man we suppose, he would confess, that the expedients mentioned have in numberless instances been basely prostituted, to gratify the wantonness and private revenge of ministers, or of those who had any interest with them; but still, perhaps, he would continue to give it as his opinion, that the crown, notwithstanding its apparently immense strength, could not avoid recurring, at times, to expedients of this kind, much less could it publicly and absolutely renounce them for ever.

It is therefore a most advantageous circumstance in the English government, that its security renders all such expedients unnecessary, and that the representatives of the people have not only been constantly willing to promote the public liberty, but that the general situation of affairs has also enabled them to carry their precautions so far as they have done. And indeed, when we consider what prerogatives the crown, in England, has implicitly renounced;that, in consequence of the independence conferred on the