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knowledge a regal and fovereign prerogative in the king touching fuch statutes; that it is in his majesty's abfolute and undoubted power to grant difpenfations to particular perfons, with the claufes of non obftante, to do as they might have done before those statutes, wherein his majesty conferring grace and favour upon fome, doth no wrong to others." As it was the prevailing fashion at the time of the revolution, not to allow that the

This abridg royal preroga

ment of the

tive was a third

alteration made

in the conftitu

difpenfing power ever had been a prerogative of the crown, therefore have I before tion at the refaid, in compliance with that fashion, and in volution. conformity with the stile of the bill of rights, that the only alterations introduced into the conftitution at that time, were in the fucceffion and tenure of the crown. But I must now beg leave to obferve, that I reckon this abridgment of the prerogative royal, as a third alteration. Tho' as to the main effect, it is perfectly immaterial, fince the power can now be no more exercised by the king, whether he be prevented from it by the abridgment or deprivation of an old prerogative, or by a declaration, that he never was legally entitled unto it.

I have faid thus much of the existence and extinction of the difpenfing power, to convince my readers, that fuch is the vigilance

A a 3

of

Our fecurity in

the political

equipoife of the

constitution,

The effects of

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 readiness and zeal of our deputies and trustees to effect it. Let no body look upon our prefent fovereign, as lefs qualified and enabled to fulfil the exe cutive functions of government, than his anceftors, whofe prerogatives were in fome points more extenfive 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 royal influence. present time; in this period many laws have

paffed; as the bill of rights, the tolerationact, the act of settlement 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 parliament, as the exigences of religious and civil freedom required; have confirmed, and ex

*Black. Com. b. iv. c. 33. fub. fin.

emplified

emplified the doctrine of refiftance, when the executive magiftrate endeavours to fubvert the constitution; have maintained the fuperiority of the laws above the king, by pronouncing his dispensing power to be illegal ; have indulged tender confciences with every religious liberty confiftent with the safety of the state; have established triennial, fince turned into feptennial elections of members to serve in parliament; have excluded certain officers from the house of commons; have restrained the king's pardon from obstructing 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 present majefty) fet bounds to the civil lift, and placed the administration 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 ministers, and his fucceffors. Yet, though these provifions have in appearance and nominally reduced the ftrength 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

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

CHAP.

CHAP. XIII.

OF THE HOUSE OF PEERS.

F the two branches of the legislature
brancher

OFF

I fhall firft confider the house of lords, of which Mr. Acherly, in his theoretic plan or directions for the Britannic conftitution, fpeaks thus:

"That the houfe of lords, General end befides their part in the legiflature, fhould and fpirit of be invefted 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 should 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 thofe 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

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