THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND SINCE THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE THE THIRD 1760-1860 BY THOMAS ERSKINE MAY, C.B. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 1861 200 N. g 226. i. 35. The right of translation is reserved PREFACE. Ir is the design of this history to trace the progress and development of the British Constitution, during a period of one hundred years; and to illustrate every material change,-whether of legislation, custom, or policy, by which institutions have been improved, and abuses in the government corrected. The accession of George III. presents no natural boundary in constitutional history: but former reigns have already been embraced in the able survey of Mr. Hallam; and frequent allusions are here made to events of an earlier period, connected with the inquiries of the present work. In considering the history of our mixed government, we are led to study each institution separately, to mark its changes, and observe its relations to other powers and influences in the State. With this view, I have found it necessary to deviate from a strictly chronological narrative, and to adopt a natural division of leading subjects. If this arrangement should appear |