general wish of the people, petitions were presented not to the crown but to the House of Commons; but means had been contrived of late so to delude the people as to make them the very instruments of the degradation of that branch of the government, the destruction of which must necessarily be attended with the loss of their liberty.

The East India bill had been made the spacious pretext of the dissolution; it was represented as a violent attack upon the franchises of the people, an invasion of the royal prerogative, and a medium through which the late ministers intended to have secured to themselves a power paramount to every power in the kingdom. In defence of that bill, he said, it did not appear reasonable that the proprietors of East India stock should in future retain in their hands a power which they had so grossly abused; by which they had plundered and rendered miserable many millions of persons who were under the protection of this nation; a power which had enabled them to enter into the most unjust and impolitic wars, the consequence of which brought very heavy expense upon this kingdom. As to the invasion of the royal prerogative, he was surprised to hear that brought as a charge laid at the door of the East India bill. The power of making war, and of carrying it on, where and in what manner he pleased, was certainly one of the first and greatest prerogatives of the crown; and yet the late House of Commons not only addressed the king not to carry on the war on the continent of America, but went so far even as to vote that man an enemy to his country who should advise the carrying of it on, or who should assist in it; so that though Sir Henry Clinton, for instance, was bound by the mutiny act to obey the king's orders, as captain-general of the forces, and was even liable to be shot if he should refuse to obey them, still the resolutions of the House of Commons would attach upon him, and suspend the whole system of military subordination; and yet that resolution had been supported by the warmest friends of the present ministry, and by himself; and no

the parliament. As to the patronage of the East India Company, which it was said ministry intended to make the meas of rendering themselves paramount to the crown, he observed, that those who were at this moment in full possession of that patronage (the Company) were very far from being independent of the crown, so far from being paramount to it; and he could assure the House, on his conscience and on his honour, that the persons who were to have been at the head of the Company's affairs, had been busied in devising means by which they might have put it most effectually out of their own power to derive any emolument or parliamentary support from their situation: and he himself had made it a point to shut his ears to every application that had been made to him for his influence with those who were to have been in the direction of India affairs, under the bill brought in by his right honourable friend. To the truth of this assertion he called God to be his witness; and he assured the House, that by his conduct on that occasion he had made himself many enemies, and not one friend.

But had his right honourable friend's bill been as bad as some people had represented it to be, still he would main→ tain that the king could not, constitutionally speaking, assign the existence of such a bill as the reason for his dissolving the parliament; for, in the first place, he ought not to have known that a bill was in existence; and, in the next, the House had a right to entertain whatever bill it pleased, even if it were possible that it could be treasonable, or if it were even for lopping off a whole branch of the pre rogative: a bill of exclusion had been entertained by parliament; and if the day should come when either a member of the House, or the whole House, should be made respon→ sible for a part taken in any bill, on that day would the liberties of England expire. An attack might be made on the prerogative by the House of Peers, and yet-that would be no ground for a dissolution, as the peers of the new parliament would be precisely the same who attacked the prerogatives in the last. This was a time which called

upon the House to oppose doctrines which seemed to be gaining ground: a noble earl (Shelburne) had often mentioned the balance of the different branches of the constitution; but for his part he reprobated the idea; this was not a government of balances: and a noble duke (Richmond), in his letter to the volunteers of Ireland, had positively rejected the idea of a balance; for he would not allow the king a negative on the acts of both Houses, as it would be strange indeed (observed his grace) that one man should have it in his power, by his negative, to counteract the wisdom of the Lords and Commons, or, in other words, of the whole nation. This observation, Mr. Burke said, might as well be applied to the House of Lords; for it would be a strange thing if 200 peers should have it in their power to defeat by their negative what had been done by the people of England. He concluded by observing, that if the measures of the late parliament were unconstitutional, they ought to be condemned and censured; if, on the other hand, they were strictly constitutional, it was the more incumbent on the present House to defend and maintain them, as the last House was said to have been put to death for having supported them. Mr. Burke then moved,

"That a Representation be presented to his majesty, most humbly to offer to his royal consideration, that the address of this House, upon his majesty's speech from the throne, was dictated solely by our conviction of his majesty's own most gracious intentions towards his people, which, as we feel with gratitude, so we are ever ready to acknowledge with cheerfulness and satisfaction.

"Impressed with these sentiments, we were willing to separate from our general expressions of duty, respect, and and veneration to his majesty's royal person and his princely virtues, all discussion whatever, with relation to several of the matters suggested, and several of the expressions employed in that speech.

"That it was not fit or becoming that any dicided opinion

without a degree of deliberation adequate to the importance of the object. Having afforded ourselves due time for that deliberation, we do now most humbly beg leave to represent to his majesty, that, in the speech from the throne, his ministers have thought proper to use a language of a very alarming import, unauthorized by the practice of good times, and irreconcileable to the principles of this govern

ment.

"Humbly to express to his majesty, that it is the privilege and duty of this House to guard the constitution from all infringement on the part of ministers; and whenever the occasion requires it, to warn them against any abuse of the authorities committed to them: but it is very lately that in a manner not more unseemly than irregular and preposterous, ministers have thought proper, by admonition from the throne, implying distrust and reproach, to convey the expectations of the people to us, their sole representatives +; and have presumed to caution us, the natural guardians of the constitution, against any infringe ment of it on our parts. This dangerous innovation we, his faithful Commons, think it our duty to mark; and as these admonitions from the throne, by their frequent repetition, seem intended to lead gradually to the establishment of an usage, we hold ourselves bound thus solemnly to protest against them.

"This House will be, as it ever ought to be, anxiously attentive to the inclinations and interests of its constituents : nor do we desire to straiten any of the avenues to the throne, or to cither House of parliament. But the ancient order, in which the rights of the people have been

*See King's Speech, Dec. 5. 1782, and May 19. 1784.

"I will never submit to the doctrines I have heard this day from the woolsack, that the other House" [House of Commons] " are the only representatives and guardians of the people's rights. I boldly maintain the contrary. I say, this House" [House of Lords] " are equally the representatives of the people." The Earl of Shelburne's Speech, April 8. 1778. See New Parliamentary History, vol. xix. p. 1048.

exercised, is not a restriction of these rights. It is a method providently framed in favour of those privileges, which it preserves and enforces by keeping in that course which has been found the most effectual for answering their ends. His majesty may receive the opinions and wishes of inindividuals under their signatures, and of bodies corporate under their seals, as expressing their own particular sense; and he may grant such redress as the legal powers of the crown enable the crown to afford. This, and the other House of Parliament, may also receive the wishes of such corporations and individuals by petition. The collective sense of his people his majesty is to receive from his Commons in parliament assembled. It would destroy the whole spirit of the constitution, if his Commons were to receive that sense from the ministers of the crown, or to admit them to be a proper or a regular channel for conveying it. "That the ministers in the said speech declare, his majesty has a just and confident reliance, that we (his faithful Commons) are animated with the same sentiments of loyalty, and the same attachment to our excellent constitution, which he had the happiness to see so fully manifested in every part of the kingdom.'

"To represent that his faithful Commons have never failed in loyalty to his majesty. It is new to them to be reminded of it. It is unnecessary and invidious to press it upon them by any example. This recommendation of loyalty, after his majesty has sat for so many years, with the full support of all descriptions of his subjects, on the throne of this kingdom, at a time of profound peace, and without any pretence of the existence or apprehension of war or conspiracy, becomes in itself a source of no small jealousy to his faithful Commons; as many circumstances lead us to apprehend that therein the ministers have reference to some other measures and principles of loyalty, and to some other ideas of the constitution, than the laws require, or the practice of parliament will admit.

"No regular communication of the proofs of loyalty and attachment to the constitution, alluded to in the speech