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 obtain subsidies; and in these days, when every thing is rated by pecuniary estimation-when gold is become the great moving spring of affairs, it may be safely affirmed, that he who depends on the will of other men, with regard to so important an article, is (whatever his power may be in other respects) in a state of real dependance.

This is the case of the king of England. He has, in that capacity, and without the grant of his people, scarcely any revenue. A few hereditary duties on the exportation of wool, which (since the establishment of manufactures) are become tacitly extinguished; a branch of the excise, which, under Charles the Second, was annexed to the crown as an indemnification for the military services it gave up, and which, under George the Second, was fixed at seven thousand pounds; a duty of two shillings on every ton of wine imported; the wrecks of ships of which the owners remain unknown; whales and sturgeons thrown on the coast; swans swimming on public rivers; and a few other feudal relics, now compose the whole appropriated revenue of the king, and are all that remain of the ancient inheritance of the crown.

The king of England, therefore, has the prerogative of commanding armies, and equipping fleets; but without the concurrence of his parliament he cannot maintain them. He can bestow places and employments; but without his parliament he cannot pay the salaries attending on them. He can declare war; but without his parliament it is impossible for him to carry it on. In a word, the royal prerogative, destitute as it is of the power of imposing taxes, is like a vast body, which cannot of itself ac

complish its motions: or, if you please, it is like a ship completely equipped, but from which the parliament can at pleasure draw off the water, and leave it aground-and also set it afloat again, by granting subsidies.

And indeed we see, that, since the establishment of this right of the representatives of the people, to grant or refuse subsidies to the crown, their other privileges have been continually increasing. Though these representatives were not, in the beginning, admitted into parliament but upon the most disadvantageous terms, yet they soon found means, by joining petitions to their money-bills, to have a share in framing those laws by which they were in future to be governed; and this method of proceeding, which at first was only tolerated by the king, they afterward converted into an express right; by declaring, under Henry the Fourth, that they would not, thenceforward, come to any resolutions with regard to subsidies, before the king had given a precise answer to their petitions.

In subsequent times we see the commons constantly successful, by their exertions of the same privilege, in their endeavours to lop off the despotic powers which still made a part of the regal prerogative. Whenever abuses of power had taken place, which they were seriously determined to correct, they made grievances and supplies (to use the expression of sir Thomas Wentworth) go hand in hand together, which always produced the redress of them. And, in general, when a bill, in consequence of its being judged by the commons essential to the public welfare, has been joined by them to a money-bill, it has seldom failed to pass in that agreeable company.*

* In mentioning the forcible use which the commons have at times made of their power of granting subsidies, by joining provisions of a different nature to bills that had grants for their object, I only mean to shew the great efficiency of that power, which was the subject of this chapter, without pretending to say any thing as to the propriety of the measure. The house of lords have even found it necessary (which confirms what is said here) to form, as it were, a confederacy among themselves, for the security of their legislative authority, against the unbounded use which the commons might make of their power of taxation; and it has been made a standing order of their house, to reject any bill whatsoever to which a money-bill has been tacked,

CHAP. VII.

The same subject continued.

BUT this force of the prerogative of the commons, and the facility with which it may be exerted, however necessary for the first establishment of the constitution, might prove too considerable at present, when it is requisite only to support it. There might be the danger, that, if the parliament should ever exert their privilege to its full extent, 7 the prince, reduced to despair, might resort to fatal extremities; or, that the constitution, which subsists only by virtue of its equilibrium, might in the end be subverted.

Indeed, this is a case which the prudence of parliament has foreseen. They have, in this respect, imposed laws upon themselves; and without touching the prerogative itself, they have moderated the exercise of it. A custom has for a long time prevailed, at the beginning of every reign, and in the kind of overflowing of affection which takes place between a king and his first parliament, to grant the king a revenue for his life: a provision which, with respect to the great exertions of his power, does not abridge the influence of the commons, but yet puts him in a condition to support the dignity of the crown, and affords him, who is the first magistrate in the nation, that independence which the laws ensure also to those magistrates who are particularly intrusted with the administration of justice.*

For

This conduct of the parliament provides an admirable remedy for the accidental disorders of the state. though, by the wise distribution of the powers of government, great usurpations are become, in a manner, impracticable, nevertheless, it is impossible but that, in consequence of the continual (though silent) efforts of the executive power, to extend itself, abuses will at length slide

The twelve judges. Their commissions, which in former times were often given them durant bene placito, now must always be made quamdiu se bene gesserint, and their salaries ascertained; but upon an address of both houses, it may be lawful to remove them.' Stat. 13. Will. III. c. 2. In the first year of the reign of George III. it was moreover enacted, that the commission of the judges should continue in force, notwithstanding the demise of the king; which has prevented their being dependant, with regard to their continuation in office, on the heir-apparent.

in. But here the powers, wisely kept in reserve by the parliament, afford the means of remedying them. At the end of each reign, the civil list, and consequently that kind of independence which it procured, are at an end. The successor finds a throne, a sceptre, and a crown; but he finds neither power nor even dignity: and before a real possession of all these things be given him, the parliament have it in their power to take a thorough review of the state, as well as correct the several abuses that may have crept in during the preceding reign: and thus the constitution may be brought back to its first principles.

England, therefore, by this means, enjoys one very great advantage-one, that all free states have sought to procure for themselves; I mean that of a periodical reformation. But the expedients which legislators have contrived for this purpose in other countries, have always, when attempted to be carried into practice, been found to be productive of very disadvantageous consequences. Those laws which were made in Rome, to restore that equality which is the essence of a democratical government, were always found impracticable; the attempt alone endangered the overthrow of the republic; and the expedient which the Florentines called ripigliar il stato, proved nowise happier in its consequences. This was because all those different remedies were destroyed beforehand, by the very evils they were meant to cure; and the greater the abuses were, the more impossible it was to correct them.

But the means of reformation which the parliament of England has taken care to reserve to itself, is the more effectual, as it goes less directly to its end, It does not oppose the usurpations of prerogative, as it were, in front: it does not encounter it in the middle of its career, and in the fullest flight of its exertion: but it goes in search of it to its source, and to the principle of its action. It does not endeavour forcibly to overthrow it; it only enervates its springs.

What increases still more the mildness of the operation is, that it is only to be applied to the usurpations themselves, and passes by what would be far more formidable to encounter, the obstinacy and pride of the usurpers.

Every thing is transacted with a new sovereign, who, till then, has had no share in public affairs, and has taken

no step which he may conceive himself bound in honour to support. In fine, they do not wrest from him what the good of the state requires he should give up: he himself makes the sacrifice.

The truth of all these observations is remarkably confirmed by the events that followed the reign of the two #last Henrys. Every barrier that protected the people : against the incursions of power had been broken through. The parliament, in their terror, had even enacted, that proclamations, that is, the will of the king, should have the force of laws; the constitution seemed really undone. Yet, on the first opportunity afforded by a new reign, li berty began again to make its appearance. And when the nation, at length recovered from its long supineness, had, at the accession of Charles the First, another opportunity of a change of sovereign, that enormous mass of * abuses, which had been accumulating, or gaining strength, during five successive reigns, was removed, and the ancient laws were restored.

To which add, that this second reformation, which was 90 extensive in its effects, and might be called a new creation of the constitution, was accomplished without producing the least convulsion. Charles the First, in the same manner as Edward the Sixth (or his uncle, the regent, duke of Somerset) had done in former times, assented to every regulation that was passed; and whatever reluctance he might at first manifest, yet the act called the Petition of Right (as well as the bill which afterward completed the work) received the royal sanction without bloodshed.

It is true, great misfortunes followed: but they were the effects of particular circumstances. The nature and extent of regal authority not having been accurately defined during the time which preceded the reigns of the Tudors, the exorbitant power of the princes of that house had gradually introduced political prejudices of even an extravagant kind: those prejudices, having had a hundred and fifty years to take root, could not be shaken off but by

#Stat. 31 Hen. VIII. chap. 8.

The laws concerning treason, passed under Henry the Eighth, which judge Blackstone calls an amazing heap of wild and newfangled treasons,' were, together with the statute just mentioned, repealed in the beginning of Edward VI.