an individual member of parliament. The "constitutional distinction, which, in concur"rence with my colleagues, I take between the "duty of a minister in the one case and the "other, is this; that when a minister brings "forward any motion as a measure of govern"ment which has undergone any discussion in "the cabinet, he violates his duty, unless such "measure shall have received the sanction of "that authority. I should, of course, feel "myself very culpable, if I attempted to bring "forward any measures in parliament as a "ministerial measure unless I had previously "submitted that measure to the consideration of "the king, and obtained his majesty's consent to "its adoption. It was therefore that I laid before "his majesty all the particulars with regard to "the measure respecting the Catholics, and "waited to obtain his majesty's approbation be"fore I attempted to submit the consideration "of that measure to this house." Here we have the modern creed of the Whig politicians. What does the English constitution, or the law of parliament, know of any two-fold capacity of the members of the House of Commons? According to that constitution, those members are the guardians of the property and the liberties of the people; and they are nothing else. But, now we learn; now, for the very first time since the parliament of England began to exist, the

House of Commons are flatly and plainly told,. that there is another body, namely, the cabinet council, who discuss bills, and resolve upon adopting them, before they are presented to that house, before leave be given to bring them in! One of their own members rises in his place, and plainly tells them, that he has recently brought in a bill because the king wished him to do it, and that he has since withdrawn that bill because the king changed his mind, and for no other reason whatever, though he was, at the same time, firmly convinced, that the passing of the bill was necessary to tranquillize and conciliate a fourth part of the people of the kingdom! Nay, he does not stop here; but goes on to say, that, unless he had obtained the king's approbation for bringing in the bill, he should have regarded it as an act highly culpable to have brought it in! We might, perhaps, have presumed, before, that such really was the case; but now it is openly avowed, that bills, before leave be moved for to bring them in, are discussed and resolved upon in the cabinet; that is to say, amongst men who are the king's servants during pleasure, and that they receive the sanction of their master before they are proposed to the parliament. What pretty stuff have Blackstone and Paley and that foreign sycophant De Lolme been writing about the checks and balances in that wonderful product of human wisdom called the

English constitution! As to the distinction between bills brought forward as measures of the cabinet, and bills originating with persons as individual members of parliament, what does the constitution know of such distinction? Does any writer upon our constitution make such a distinction? Does Blackstone, who has given us a commentary upon the whole of our laws, talk of any such distinction? Has he once named such a thing as a cabinet? Can the parliament recognise the existence of any such council, or body of men? Is not such a body utterly unknown to our laws? Besides, let us ask a little, what bills there are, of any consequence, which are not measures of the cabinet, if we admit of this distinction? All bills relating to the army; all bills relating to the navy; all bills relating to the church; all bills relating to the colonies; all bills relating to foreign connexions and subsidies; all bills relating to loans and taxes, not only in the principal, but also in the amount; in short, no one will pretend to deny, that every bill, in which the people are generally interested, must, according to this distinction, be regarded as a measure of the cabinet; and therefore, if to all such bills the king's consent, previously obtained, be an indis pensable requisite, we may call upon Blackstone and Paley to come forth from the grave, vindicate their writings, and tell, if they can, of what

use is a House of Commons, except that of amusing the unthinking mass of the people with the idea that they are represented, and that the laws, by which they are taxed and bound, are made with their own consent. Yes, Mr. Blackstone, you, who through four mortal volumes, which, piled upon one another, might supply the place of a stool, have rung the changes upon the blessings arising from the checks and balances of the English constitution, do rise and tell us where, if Lord Howick's doctrine be sound, or if the parliament be content to act upon it, or rather, to be passive under it, we are to look for .those inestimable checks and balances. It is the peculiar business of the House of Commons to frame and to pass bills for the raising of money upon the people; and when they pass any bill for the placing of the public money at the disposal of the crown, it is called a grant. Now, as all these bills, without one exception, are what Lord Howick terms, measures of the cabinet, what a farce, if this doctrine were sound, would this granting work be! According to this doctrine, it is resolved in the cabinet to bring in a bill for granting the king money; the king has the bill submitted to him, and directs it to be brought in; the secretary to the treasury brings it in; it is passed without a division; and this, this, Lord Howick would tell us, is the true "practice of the constitution in this free

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country," where, as Blackstone says, the people, by their representatives, tax themselves!

cry of

S6. Here was, then, a grand blow given to the "venerable constitution." But it was speedily followed by another, coming still from the same cause. We have seen that the Whig ministry dissolved the parliament, when it was four years old, and we are now going to see this parliament disolved when only four months old! The new ministry had nominally at its head the late Duke of Portland; but PERCEVAL, who was chancellor of the exchequer, was, in fact, the master of the whole affair, co-operating, however, cordially with ELDON, who now again became chancellor. The moment the dismission of the Whigs was resolved on, the other party set up the "NO POPERY." The walls and houses, not only of London, but of the country towns and villages, were covered with these words, sometimes in chalk and sometimes in paint; the clergy and the corporations were all in motion; even the cottages on the skirts of the commons and the forests heard fervent blessings poured out on the head of the "good old king for preserving "the nation from a rekindling of the fires in "Smithfield!" Never was delusion equal to this! Never a people so deceived; never public credulity so great; never hypocrisy so profound and so detestably malignant as that of the deceivers! The mind shrinks back at the thought