are in a bad way indeed; and I should fear that not even a Grenville ministry could, in that case, effect" the salvation of the "country." I have said, under pretence-because although open opponents can do us no mischief, mock-reformers, and even halfreformers may.

When, indeed, the question was young-inexperience, rashness, and indiscipline of mind, were the prolific parents of an infinity of opinions and fancies correct or crude; just, as well as unjust. But, from the furnace of discussion-kept hot for more than thirty years-a furnace in which the scum of lighter matter has been dissipated in vapour, the golden truth has at length come forth in such purity, that he who runs may read, that he who now knows not what is wrong from what is right, has sadly mis-spent his time; and had far better remain in his study, still taking in the ballast of information and rectitude, than start again the thousand-times-refuted propositions of former smatterers.

After all that can be said in the way of admonition, by experience, we must still expect, even from mistaken, as well as from mock reformers, motions at public meetings for compromising propositions and half-measures, of which the worst of all is for triennial parliaments. The mock reformers will play this game, because they know in what it will end. The well-meaning, but short-sighted, fancy the gulf of corruption so wide they must not attempt it at one leap, not reflecting that he who does not at one spring leap over, leaps in; and, if he get back unsuffocated, has all to do over again.

The stopping of one hole in the cullender will not make it hold water. Our system of representation is so completely decayed and crazy, none but a crazy man could, as it should seem, attempt its partial, progressive amendment. If a real representation be our constitutional cannon for repelling attacks on our liberties, by either the crown or the aristocracy,-and if we find that cannon so honey-combed and shaken from end to end as to be worse than unserviceable; -as exhibiting in its very chamber such yawning chasms, that instead of throwing its shot against an enemy, its explosion is backwards against ourselves, shall we go to work on such a piece of ordnance as bungling tinkers, or as judicious founders? What do our rulers do with a real cannon, when so honeycombed? They RE-FORM it. They melt it down into its original mass, and recast it in the proper mould. Have we not the mould of the constitution? Let us, then, without any tinkering projects, or petty partial amendments, of which nothing can be foreseen but abortion, melt down our decayed political cannon, and recast-REFORM-it in the constitutional mould. Then, and then only, will it ever be made once more sound and serviceable! By this rational process alone, can we have representation co-extensive with taxation; that representation fairly distributed; and annual parliaments.

But we are called on, forsooth, to shew when this was the constitution. Such cavillers are too shallow to know when they expose their own ignorance. The Protestants have been asked by the Papists, "Where, prior to Luther, was their religion?" "In the bible," was the answer: and ours is as easy. To tell us when the PRINCIPLES of the English constitution did not require, representation to be co-extensive with taxation; when it did not require, that representation to be fairly distributed; and when it did not require, that the duration of parliaments should not exceed one year, are questions which wiser men than such cavillers never will be able to answer. My present reply to this despicable cavil is-" Look at the latter part of the definition "of the constitution given in page 19." Despotic, corrupt, or erroneous practice, never can explain the constitution, which is only to be found in its PRINCIPLES.

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Wickedness and oppression have at length brought on a resistless necessity of appealing to PRINCIPLE against destructive tice. It is impossible' to have the benefit of PRINCIPLE, unless the separate elective franchise of the boroughs shall be merged, or melted down, in the general franchise of each county, so that, by then fairly dividing the counties into elective districts of equal population, there shall be a fair and equal division of a common right. Thus alone can the PRINCIPLE of equal representation be carried into practice. Here will be no disfranchisement; for the inhabitants of boroughs will still elect, in common with all others. Should they complain, we have an argument to which perhaps they will listen. According to the English constitution, "taxation and representation are inseparable, and ought to be "fairly and equitably distributed. If you covet more than your "proportion of benefit, take with it a corresponding proportion "of the burden."

To the despicable farrago of mock reform, touching representation, found in Mr. Brougham's Epistle to the Caledonians, and in the articles on reform in the Edinburgh Review, I have paid in my parable all the attention it merits. In those compositions there is however so much dexterity of pen, that on three specific points, namely, the influence of the crown, triennial parliaments, and the liberties taken with the constitutional reformers, I shall offer my sentiments at some length. In what is artfully remarked on the influence of the crown, there is," mixed up with much "that is good," plenty of fallacy and faction; in what is very courageously said, in defiance of fact and principle, on triennial parliaments, the cloven foot of mock reform will be detected; and what is candidly insinuated in such a way as a poniard is insinuated into the backs of those whom a masked bravo is hired to put out of the way, will be shewn in its true colours.

The Edinburgh Reviewer, as too much the fashion with our

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metaphysical instructors from beyond the Tweed, when writing on governments, and as was eminently instanced in the Earl of Selkirk's published letter to myself, and his plan of national defence, is an adventurer who puts to sea on this all-embracing subject, without the necessary precautions for making a safe and successful voyage. His bark is not provided either with the ballast of human RIGHTS, the compass of the CONSTITUTION, or the rudder of COMMON LAW, which, as being the perfection of reason, is necessary for correcting the error of unsound statutes. Of these criteria, for proving the soundness of reforming propositions, we discover not a trace.

Even when, to amuse and delude us poor Englishmen, he condescends to name the constitution, or to appeal to its authority, 'tis only to expose his own ignorance, and to manifest that "folly "and presumption," which Earl Grey lays at the door of a very different "description of persons." In one part of his Epistle he says, "We have a constitution," but he instantly adds" not 66 very perfect certainly-but containing so much of excellence, as "should incline us rather to MEND"-mark, reader, the expression! let us take down his words!- " rather to MEND than to new model." He then begins his mending with a Place Bill; but it as much resembles the only constitutional statute* we ever had on that subject, as Hamlet resembled Hercules. When we follow the harlequin gentleman into the Edinburgh Review of the same month (April) we there again see his tinkering and cobbling, and hear him announce 66 a second IMPROVEMENT of "the English constitution." Is such "folly and presumption" to be endured!--Is this the man employed by the Grenvilles and the Greys to tell us of the great and good things they wish to do for us?

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It was, I think, in the preceding Review we had another very intelligible hint about the mode of "mending" and "improv "ing" the English constitution; and it was in the same breath in which the Reviewer was extolling the wisdom and the virtue of the Grenvilles and Greys. "There is a third party," says he, "in the nation-small, indeed, in point of numbers, compared "with either of the others-and, for this very reason, low, we "fear, in present popularity-but essentially powerful from talents "and reputation, and calculated to become both popular and "authoritative, by the fairness and the firmness of its principles. "This is composed of the Whig Royalists of England-men "who, without forgetting that all government is from the people, "and for the people, are satisfied that the rights and liberties of "the people are best maintained by"

By what

* 12 and 13 Will. III. cap. 2. which declares" that no person who has an "office or place of profit under the king, or receives a pension from the crown, *shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons.”

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think you, reader? By real representatives? By the democratic branch of our government, which alone has direct freedom for its foundation? No: no such thing; but a regular hereditary monarchy, and a large open aristocracy."-Why, this equals Napoleon himself. Every thing for the people, but no"thing by the people.". -Here is a metaphorical rant worthy of even a Burke or a Windham! How this fine flourish about monarchy" agrees with "the influence of the crown," which is the fruitful cause of all our calamities! How admirably the panegyric on " aristocracy" corresponds with the notrious fact, that our BOROUGH PATRONS chiefly consist of Peers! And if we are to take the word " aristocracy" in its extended sense, is it not there the reviewer exclusively finds his "hot "headed and shallow-headed persons of rank, with their parasites "and dependants, and indeed almost all rich persons, of quiet tempers and weak intellects" who "started up into furious anti"jacobins?"

We constitutional reformers think the English constitution quite good enough, without this Edinburgh MENDING; nor do we even desire any Grenville IMPROVEMENTS. The thing is good enough to please us. We only wish we had it. When, indeed, it suits a turn, this reviewer can, in words, even appeal to the constitution, as having an existence in principles. If what he says touching triennial parliaments be founded in gross error as to fact, a fact on the very surface of history-his argument is mere verbiage without ideas: if he knew the historical fact, his artful language is in the nature of false evidence. But he certainly quotes corrupt and treacherous practice, and would have us believe it is principle. More of this hereafter.

But let me proceed with my three topics in regular order. The influence of the crown, in the Edinburgh Review (as in Earl Grey's manifesto) is held up and harped upon as the grand bugbear. It is the cause" of our military disappointments-the "fruitful cause of all our calamities at home and abroad." "This it is" which does this, "this it is" which does that; "this it is" which does the other; and "it is this" which has "effectually presented to an astonished generation the spectacle "of applause publicly bestowed upon the authors of our disgraces " and misfortunes-and bestowed expressly for having ruined and "disgraced us." But the writer, aware that all this declamation against the influence of the crown would not now alone serve the turn, does at last recollect that, for doing all this mischief, the crown has an "instrument"-" and this machinery is only to be "found in the abuses which, through lapse of time, have crept "into the constitution of parliament." It is all, mind ye, “lapse "of time;"-no systematic acquisition of rotten boroughs, no settled system of corruption and usurpation, on the part of "A

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"LARGE OPEN ARISTOCRACY," for the borough-mongers; but mere "lapse of time." forgotten.

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are great

This must not be

When this gentleman was seeking the cause of all our calamities, our dishonour, our ruin, he might, had it suited the purpose for which he wrote, have at once honestly told us, that all undue influence of the crown is a mere and obvious effect, of which the detested borough-monger system is the sole cause. With an independent House of Commons wholly created, as it ought to be, by free election of the people, where would be the undue influence of the crown? give us but constitutional reform, it will in an instant vanish. It can then have no existence.

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But this confounding of cause and effect, and all this trickery for hiding the true cause of all that is bad, suits a faction which, when in power, did govern-did exercise the "influence of the crown," by means of this same "instrument" of which their partizan so smoothly speaks; and who, as most evident from their contemptible farce of mock reform, would in the same way govern again to-morrow, if again in power. Had indeed the folly of the nation replaced them in that power, this farce perhaps would have been acted; in which case, we might have had time for taking down, transporting, and rebuilding on the mountains of Scotland all the pyramids of Egypt, ere a single atom of our liberties had been recovered.

What says the sage Edinburgh reviewer himself this Mr. Brougham, this writer on parliamentary reform, who sits and votes in parliament by the special grace of the independent electors of the borough of Camelford in Cornwall? What, says he? When, after travelling over much other ground, he arrives at the close boroughs, "in the quiet possession of a single "great family," such for instance as Camelford, and the rest, here forsooth this ardent reformer finds "great difficulty." In touching these, he tells you, there ought to be observed "greater "caution" than in any thing else, than in all other parts of a reform put together. This he accounts an experiment of vast "difficulty and hazard." It ought therefore to be postponed." Here, we see it was not for nothing, that Lord made Mr. his nominee for one of the rottenest of the rotten boroughs. How slavish is the work imposed on these nominees! In comparison of it, the drudgery of a Scavenger's labourer were an honourable, because an honest, employment!

In another place the advocate says, "For half a century the question has been agitated, and not without the support of all "the most eminent men in parliament and the country; strange to tell, no progress has been made-NOT A STEP GAINED;" No, sir: Not at all "strange to tell." It is all perfectly natural.

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