gether, and considered as one aggregate body, are omnipotent; that is, they can make law; and that which is law, they can make no law; but taken separately, and independently one of another, they can neither make nor.unmake laws; for the consent of all three is required to every act to bind the subject. This is the true constitution of England; and therefore no written law which is now in existence, can be repealed otherwise than with the concurrence of the King, the Lords, and the Commons. But, says the Right Hon. Gentleman, we (the House of Commons) have a privilege to imprison and punish at our own discretion; we do not care for an Act of Parliament, which declares, that "no man shall be imprisoned or put to death without the intervention of a Jury;" we can break down that barrier; nay, we will break it down, and when we have done so, there is no power upon earth that can call us to account: we are "the sole judges of our own privileges-the sole judges of what those privileges are-the sole judges of the extent (only observe, my Lord, the extent!) to which those privileges are to be carried; and the sole judges of the manner in which such privileges are

serves)" there seems to be no reason to doubt, but that any Act at this day would be valid, though all the temporal Lords or all the spiritual Lords were absent." Blackstone, vol. i. p. 155.) My Lord Holt very justly observes, that neither House of Parliament, nor both Houses jointly, can dispose of the liberty of the subject, or property of the subject; for to this purpose the King must join; and it is in the necessity of their several concurrences to such acts, that the great security of the liberty of the subject consists." (2 Raym. 1112.) In January, 1648, the Commons passed a vote, "That whatever is enacted or declared for law by the Commons in Parliament assembled, hath the force of law; and all the people of this nation are concluded thereby, although the consent and concurrence of the King or House of Peers be not had thereto;"-but, when the Constitution was restored in all its forms, it was particularly enacted by statute 13 Car. II. c. 1. that if any person shall maliciously or advisedly affirm, that both or either of the Houses of Parliament have any legislative authority without the King, such person shall incur all the penalties of a præmunire."

to be exercised." And are we really come to this? Are the people of England blind? Or are they so indifferent, that they can disregard the declaration made by the Right Hon. Gentleman, that the House of Commons alone (without the concurrence of the King and Lords) are omnipotent; that there is nothing but what they can do, if it be called by the name of privilege; and that the Judges of the land are estopped from declaring when they do wrong? Where does the Right Hon. Gentleman learn this law? Where did he find it said, that the House of Commons alone can repeal the written law of the land? He has referred to my Lord Coke he has cited Sir Matthew Hale: he has favoured us with extracts from Sir William Blackstone; but does any one of those writers say, clearly and distinctly, that the House of Commons alone can do away the written law of the land; that they can confine and punish the subject at their own discretion; in short, that they can do any thing they please, and that no court of justice in this country has power to judge of their acts, and to declare when they exceed their powers? If any one, or even all, of those great legal writers should have declared these things, I would not pay the least regard to them; for I know, that they are decidedly repugnant to the spirit of our Constitution; and I can never forget what my Lord Holt (as great a lawyer as ever lived) declared upon the bench, viz. " that the authority of Parliament is from the law, and as it is circumscribed by law, so it may be exceeded; and if they do exceed those legal bounds and authority, their acts are wrongful, and cannot be jus tified any more than the acts of private men." (1 Salk. 505.) The Right Hon. Gentleman must have been aware of this declaration of the learned Judge; but as it differs from his sentiments, he wishes to cast my Lord Holt in the back ground, by calling him singular; but that he was not quite so singular as that Right Hon. Gentleman wishes the people to believe, I shall shew, when I come to speak of the authority which the Judges have to inter fere in matters of Privilege of Parliament.

The Right Honourable Gentleman asserts, that "Privilege of Parliament is as much lex terra, and as much within the exception of Magna Charta, as any one part of the known law of the land that comes within its exceptions." To this I will answer, that the Right Hon. Gen

and

fessor's reign,* and this Modus shewn to, approved, and used, by William the Conqueror, and in the times of his successors, Kings of England, as its title asserts, (which certainly was added long after the Conquest, if the Modus was before it,) or transcribed in a parchment roll, and sent into Ireland by King Henry II. to be there observed, and that, no doubt, by the advice of his Judges, it is very probable some of our historians, Parliamentary writs, rolls, records, statutes, or law-books, would have mentioned it; especially Statham, Fitsherbert, Brook, Fortescue, Sir Thomas Smith, Edward Vowell, Hollinshed, and Mr. Camden, in their Titles and Discourses of Parliaments. But (adds he) not one of all our ancient historians, Parliament writs, rolls, records, journals, statutes, law-books, or writers of Parliaments that I have perused, ever made the least mention of it, before Sir Edward Coke vouched it in the Parliament of 35 Elizabeth, when he was Speaker." (See Pryn. on the 4th Inst. p. 6, 7.) And in his "Additional Appendix of Records," (p. 1,) he tells us, that in perusing Mr. Agar's Abridgment of Placita coram Rege in the treasury of the receipts of the King's Exchequer, he found at the end of bis Abridgment and table to the Placita of King Richard II. this Modus tenendi Parliamentum, transcribed by him, out of a manuscript in Sir Robert Cotton's Library, as relating to the time of King Richard II. and containing some passages in it transcribed out of records in his reign. Therefore Mr. Hagar thought that its highest antiquity did not exceed the latter end of King Richard II.'s reign; and so (says Mr. Prynne) the author's discourse of its antiquity and authority will prove but a mere Utopian fancy of his own invention. (To be continued.)

tleman is completely mistaken. The House of Commons had no jurisdiction whatever till several years after the existence of Magna Charta. My lord Coke, indeed, has carried the antiquity of that House much higher; but he is quite wrong, for the first writ for the election of knights, citizens, and burgesses, was in the 49th year of the reign of King Henry the Third-(vide Dug. Sum. Parl. 3. Cot. Abr. Pref. 13. b.) In the 35th year of Elizabeth, ann. 1592, Sir Edward Coke was Speaker of the House of Commons, and he then attempted to mislead it in a manner which deserves to be made known. He talked very highly of the antiquity of Parliaments, of the mode of holding Parliaments, such as it is at this day; and said he had a book, which, if any member desired to see, he would shew it him; being a Precedent of a Parliament holden before the Conquest; intitled Modus tenendi Parliamentum; but no sooner had he extolled its antiquity and authority in print, than that most judicious industrious antiquary, Mr. John Selden, decried it to be a late imposture of a bold fancy, not exceeding the reign of King Edward the Third (Titles of Honour, p. 70% to 721 ;) and that very learned divine, Bishop Usher, in a letter to Mr. W. Hakewill, of Lincoln's Inn (who affirmed he had seen an exemplification thereof in the reign of King Henry the Fourth, said to be sent by King Henry the Second into Ireland,) conceived it to be a mistake; and that this Modus was not so ancient, many preg. nant evidences of its novelty appearing throughout its whole contexture. To these I will add the observations of the learned and industrious Mr. Prynne, namely, that the word Parliament was not in use in the Conqueror's reign; for, says he, "that word, to express or denote a Parliamentary great council as this Modus useth it, was never used in any of the ancient great councils, synods, laws, canons, constitutions, charters, patents, writs, or other records, nor yet in any of our old historians, living in the reigns of our British, Saxon, Danish Kings, before, or of our Norman or English Kings, after the Conquest, till the reign of King Henry the Third;-(vide Pryn. on 4th Inst. p. 2;) and, therefore, he is very much dissatisfied with Sir Edward Coke for his deception, or, at best, his mistake, and declares, that "had this been the mode of holding Parliaments in Edward the Con

* I embrace this opportunity to observe, that, as to the Laws of Edward the Confessor, the authenticity of those in print is controverted by Dr. Hickes. (Hic. Thes. Ling. Septen. dissert. epist. 95.) In truth, (says Mr. Serjeant Runnington) what were in reality the Laws of Edward the Confessor is much disputed by antiquarians, and our ignorance of them seems to be one of the greatest defects in English history. The collection of Laws in Wilkins, which pass under the name of Edward, are plainly a posterior and an ignorant compilation. (Hale's Hist. of the Com. Law, v. 1, p. 6, note B.)