The effects of royal influence.

of every branch of the legislature upon each other, that we may reft fecure in their political equipoife, that none of them will outgrow or absorb the other. If in the variety and change of political occurrences it fhall be found requifite either to abridge or enlarge the prerogative of the fovereign, it behoves us to confide in the readinefs and zeal of our deputies and truftees to effect it. Let no body look upon our present fovereign, as lefs qualified and enabled to fulfil the executive functions of government, than his anceftors, whose prerogatives were in fome points more extensive and numerous than his. What has been pruned off from the precarious branches of prerogative has been engrafted upon the double bearing stock of royal influence.

*From the revolution in 1688 to the present time; in this period many laws have paffed; as the bill of rights, the tolerationact, the act of fettlement with its conditions, the act for uniting England with Scotland, and fome others; which have afferted our liberties in more clear and emphatical terms; have regulated the fucceffion of the crown by parliment, as the exigences of religious and civil freedom required; have confirmed, and ex

* Blak. Com. b. iv. c. 33. fub. fin:

emplified

emplified the doctrine of refiftance, when the executive magiftrate endeavours to fubvert the conftitution; have maintained the fuperiority of the laws above the king, by pronouncing his difpenfing power to be illegal; have indulged tender confciences with every religious liberty confiftent with the fafety of the ftate; have eftablished triennial, fince turned into feptennial elections of members to ferve in parliament; have excluded certain officers from the houfe of commons; have reftrained the king's pardon from obftructing parliamentary impeachments; have imparted to all the lords an equal right of trying their fellow peers; have regulated trials for high treafon; have afforded our pofterity a hope, that corruption of blood may one day be abolished and forgotten; have (by the defire of his prefent majesty) set bounds to the civil lift, and placed the adminiftration of that revenue in hands, that are accountable to parliament; and have (by the like defire) made the judges completely independent of the king, his minifters, and his fucceffors. Yet, though these provifions have in appearance and nominally reduced the strength of the executive power to a much lower ebb than in the preceding period; if on the other hand we throw into the oppofite scale (what perhaps

A a 4

perhaps the immoderate reduction of the antient prerogative may have rendered in fome degree neceffary) the vaft acquifition of force arifing from the riot-act, and the annual expence of a ftanding army, and the vaft acquifition of perfonal attachment arifing from the magnitude of the national debt, and the manner of levying these yearly millions, that are appropriated to pay the interest, we shall find, that the crown has gradually and imperceptibly gained almoft as much influence, as it has apparently loft in prerogative."

CHAP.

CHAP. XIII.

OF THE HOUSE OF PEERS.

F the two branches of the legislature

OF

I fhall firft confider the house of lords,

and fpirit of the house of

of which Mr. Acherly, in his theoretic plan. or directions for the Britannic conftitution, fpeaks thus: "That the house of lords, General end besides their part in the legislature, fhould be invested with, and fhould have, as inter- peers. woven in their conftitution, thefe fpecial powers and privileges, viz. that their right of peerage fhould be deemed a fpecial truft for the whole government; that they fhould have the dernier refort only in all matters of judicature, and the fole judicature of impeachments commenced and profecuted by the commons; and that it fhould be deemed an effential part of that judicature to take cognizances of those impeachments, and to hear and determine the matters therein charged; and the reafon he gave for investing them with the dernier refort was, left illegal judgments in inferior judicatures fhould creep in, and by little and little undermine and change

Acherly's Brit. Conf. Sec. xii. p. 45.

the

All laws at all times made

of the great

men,

the fundamental form and principles of this conftitution, of which there might be fome danger, in regard the judges would be neceffarily of the king's fole nomination and appointment.

"But in questions of property, where the claims on either fide fhall not be mixed with equity, this ultimate judicature fhould (without additions to fupply defects) give the fame judgments, as are prefcribed by the ftrict and pofitive laws in being; because these laws fhould be every man's birthright, and should have no controuler, nor be controuled by any judicature (except only by that power, which is to be legislative, in which every man's confent is to be involved;) for if a law and rule of property be made, and a man's cafe fhall not be determined by it, the law and the authority of the makers would be vain and nugatory."

In the earliest traces of any legiflative acts with the advice paffed in this country, we conftantly find exprefs and unambiguous mention made of the advice and assistance of the great men (magnates) barons, prelates, archbishops, bishops, vavafours, earls, (comites,) &c. under which names, appellations, and defcriptions fome monarchical and ariftocratical writers have indeed pretended to doubt, whether com

moners