malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt. Men are in public life as in private, fome good, fome evil. The elevation of the one, and the depreffion of the other, are the first objects of all true policy. But that form of government, which, neither in its direct inftitutions, nor in their immediate tendency, has contrived to throw its affairs into the most truit worthy hands, but has left its whole executory fyftem to be difpofed of agreeably to the uncontrouled pleasure of any one man, however excellent or virtuous, is a plan of polity defective not only in that member, but confequentially erroneous in every part of it.

In arbitrary governments, the conftitution of the miniftry follows the conflitution of the legiflature. Both the law and the magiftrate are the creatures of will. It must be fo. Nothing, indeed, will appear more certain, on any tolerable confideration of this matter, than that every fort of government ought to have its adminiftration correfpondent to its legislature. If it fhould be otherwife, things muft fall into an hideous disorder. The people of a free commonwealth, who have taken fuch care that their laws should be the refult of general confent, cannot be fo fenfelefs as to fuffer their executory fyftem to be compofed of perfons on whom they have no dependance, and whom no proofs of the public love and confidence have recommended to thofe 'powers, upon the use of which the very being of the ftate depends.

The popular election of magiftrates, and popular difpofition of rewards and honours, is one of the first advantages of a free ftate. Without it, or fomething equivalent to it, perhaps the people cannot long enjoy the fubftance of freedom; certainly none of the vivifying energy of good government. The frame of our commonwealth did not admit of fuch an actual election: but it ovided as well, and (while the fpirit of the contitution is preferved)

better for all the effects of it than by the method of fuffrage in any democratic state whatfoever. It had always, until of late, been held the firft duty of Parliament, to refufe to fupport Government, until power was in the hands of perfons who were acceptable to the people, or while factions predominated in the Court in which the nation had no confidence. Thus all the good, effects of popular election were fuppofed to be fecured to us, without the mifchiefs attending on perpetual intrigue, and a diftinct canvafs for every particular office throughout the body of the people. This was the most noble and refined part of our conftitution. The people, by their reprefentatives and grandees, were intrufted with a deliberative power in making laws; the king with the controul of his negative. The king was intrufted with the deliberative choice and the election to office; the people had the negative in a parliamentary refusal to support. Formerly this power of controul was what kept minifters in awe of parliaments, and parliaments in reverence with the people. If the ufe of this power of controul on the fyftem and perfons of administration is gone, every thing is loft, parliament and all. We may affure ourselyes, that if parliament will tamely fee evil men take poffeffion of all the ftrong holds of their country, and allow them time and means to fortify themselves, under a pretence of giving them a fair trial, and upon a hope of discovering, whether they will not be reformed by power, and whether their measures will not be better than their morals; fuch a parliament will give countenance to their measures alfo, whatever that parliament may pretend, and whatever thofe measures may be.

Every good political inftitution must have a preventive operation as well as a remedial. It ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men from government, and not to truft for the fafety of the flate to fubfequent punishment alone: punishment, which has ever been tardy and uncertain; and which,

when power is fuffered in bad hands, may chance to fall rather on the injured than the criminal.

Before men are put forward into the great trufts of the ftate, they ought by their conduct to have obtained fuch a degree of eftimation in their country, as may be fome fort of pledge and fecurity to the public, that they will not abufe thofe trufts. It is no mean fecurity for a proper ufe of power, that a man has fhewn by the general tenor of his actions, that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence, of his fellow citizens have been among the principal objects of his life; and that he has owed none of the gradations of his power or fortune to a fettled contempt, or occafional forfeiture of their efteem.

That man who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to defert his friends, or who lofing it has no friends to fympathize with him; he who has no fway among any part of the landed or commercial intereft, but whofe whole importance has begun with his office, and is fure to end with it; is a perfon who ought never to be fuffered by a controuling parliament to continue any of those fituations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs; because fuch a man has no connexion with the intereft of the people.

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Those knots or cabals of men who have got together, avowedly without any public principle, in order to fell their conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore univerfally odious, ought never to be fuffered to domineer in the ftate; becaufe they have no connexion with the fentiments and opinions of the people.

Thefe are confiderations which in my opinion enforce the neceffity of having fome better reafon, in a free country, and a free parliament, for supporting the minifters of the crown, than that fhort one, That the king has thought proper to appoint them. There is fomething very courtly in this. But it is a principle pregnant with all forts of mischief, in a

conftitution like ours, to turn the views of active men from the country to the court. Whatever be the road to power, that is the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no use as a means of power or confideration, the qualities which ufually procure that opinion will be no longer cultivated. And whether it will be right, in a state fo popular in its conftitution as ours, to leave ambition without popular motives, and to truft all to the operation of pure virtue in the minds of kings and minifters, and public men, must be fubmitted to the judgment and good fenfe of the people of England.

Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, without directly controverting the principle, to raife objections from the difficulty under which the fovereign labours to diftinguish the genuine voice and fentiments of his people, from the clamour of a faction, by which it is fo easily counterfeited. The nation, they fay, is generally divided into parties, with views and paffions utterly irreconcileable. If the king should put his affairs into the hands of any one of them, he is fure to difguft the reft; if he felect particular men from among them all, it is an hazard that he difgufts them all. Thofe who are left out, however divided before, will foon run into a body of oppofition; which, being a collection of many discontents into one focus, will without doubt be hot and violent enough. Faction will make its cries refound through the nation, as if the whole were in an uproar, when by far the majority, and much the better part, will feem for a while as it were annihilated by the quiet in which their virtue and moderation incline them to enjoy the bleffings of ment. Befides that the opinion of the mere vulgar is a miferable rule even with regard to themselves, on account of their violence and inftability. So that if you were to gratify them in their humour today, that very gratification would be a ground of their diffatisfaction on the next. Now as all the fe

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rules of public opinion are to be collected with great difficulty, and to be applied with equal uncertainty as to the effect, what better can a king of England do, than to employ fuch men as he finds to have views and inclinations moft conformable to his own; who are leaft infected with pride and self will, and who are leaft moved by fuch popular humours as are perpetually traverfing his defigns, and difturbing his fervice; trufting that, when he means no ill to his people, he will be fupported in his appointments, whether he chooses to keep or to change, as his private judgment or his pleafure leads him? He will find a fure refource in the real weight and influence of the crown, when it is not fuffered to become an inftrument in the hands of a faction.

I will not pretend to say that there is nothing at all in this mode of reasoning; because I will not affert that there is no difficulty in the art of government. Undoubtedly the very beft adminiftration must encounter a great deal of oppofition; and the very worst will find more fupport than it deferves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting to those who have a mind to deceive themfelves. It is a fallacy in conftant ufe with thofe who would level all things, and confound right with wrong, to infift upon the inconveniencies which are attached to every choice, without taking into confideration the different weight and confequence of thofe inconveniencies. The queftion is not concerning abfolute dif content or perfect fatisfaction in government; neither of which can be pure and unmixed at any time, or upon any system. The controverfy is about that degree of good humour in the people, which may poffibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for. While fome politicians may be waiting to know whether the fenfe of every individual be against them, accurately diftinguishing the vulgar from the better fort, drawing lines between the enterprizes of a faction and the efforts of a people, they may chance