vokes their indignation; and when once they have become acquainted with their own ftrength, they can rarely be brought to use it with difcretion. Perhaps, for thefe reafons, the prefent is a crifis the most favourable that has happened, or is likely to happen again, for the Parliament of England to begin a reform of the reprefentation, and correct what other abufes in the practice have falfified the fpirit of our excellent Conftitution.

With refpect to the conduct and degrees of so delicate a proceeding, I shall state loosely some general obfervations.-To a business of such difficulty and danger, every man should bring with him a certain temper of mind, borrowed from a previous contemplation of the political fituation of his country at the moment. He fhould make up fome general refolution as to the degree of alteration to which his affent should be given. When our objects are undefined, there is danger of being drawn by the detail into a wider scheme of correction than is prudent and falutary under our circumftances. Evils are not always to be removed, fimply because they are evils. In every human fyftem there are neceffary evils; and fometimes, in

our

our folicitude to shake off these badges of our infirmity, we fubftitute more folid inconveniences. Those who go to work with high-wrought notions of purity and perfection, are as ill calculated for the undertaking, as if their object were really to deftroy our government, or to render it unfit for the purposes of fociety. As there is neither abfolute good nor abfolute evil in life, it is the bufinefs of him who would reform our condition, not fimply to separate the evil from the good, but to balance between evils of different magnitudes. He muft diftinguish between adfcititious and neceffary ills; between thofe which are compenfated by no advantages, or by none that amount to a counterpoife, and those which grow out of our felicities and cling to our bleffings as the badges of our imperfection. Without this thorough examination, this round calculation-we can never effectuate a wholesome Reform; and the fame arrow, which was aimed at an evil, may ftrike through a bleffing that lies beyond it, and facrifice a fubftantial good to the removal of a diminutive forrow. Government is not a mere holiday amusement, not a model to be gazed at for its delicacy of workmanship; but a machine to en-

dure, to fuffer conftant ufe, conftant attrition, conftant expofure; a thing of every day, fitted to the vulgar, the coarfe, and the profane, as well as to the refined, the lofty, and the learned.

I have faid, that a Member of the Legislature, before he enters upon fo momentous a question, fhould bring with him the proper temper, resulting from a candid furvey of the prefent state of the country. If, in regarding her comparative fituation in different periods, he perceive that our prefent Conftitution, with all its imperfections and abuses, has not prevented a rife of fortune fince her depreffed condition in 1783, fo rapid as to be almost incredible; if he find that four annual millions have acceded to the revenue of the nation; that the number of fhips entered inwards and cleared outwards have increafed from feven to twelve thousand; that the value of imports, which in 1783 was thirteen, is in 1792 not less than nineteen millions fterling; while the exports, which produced fourteen, have mounted to twenty ;—that the public funds have rifen from between fifty and fixty, to between ninety and a hundred ;—if be fuffer his mind to meditate at leifure on thefe

important facts, will he not be referved in the liberty he allows himself, of propofing or fupporting plans of alteration? He may fay, that the political prosperity which has here been referred to does not include political happiness; but let him folemnly afk himself, if the people, unless they were generally happy, nay, rendered fo by their government, would or could enable their government, by their loans, contributions, and commercial exertions, to purfue its objects with fuch vigour and fuccefs?

The Americans, whofe example has fometimes been cited for very oppofite purposes to thofe for which it has been adduced in the course of thefe Effays, built as much as poffible on old foundations, and left ftanding their ancient records, and precedents, and all the common law of the land. They left them standing, not only because they wifely held them in veneration, but because they felt (for woeful experience had improved them in polity) that it was enough at once to establish a Conftitution which contained within itself the principles of its future melioration. They left this reforming principle to

operate in a courfe analogous to that of nature; in a courfe of incidental improvement; to wait the fuggeftions of time and occafion, and to advance cautiously on the lessons of experience. The fame feeds of melioration are treasured in our own Conftitution, and are not to be provoked into fudden maturity by violent applications, but must be left to the kindly influence of the feafons, and the cherishing dews of heaven.

I did not propofe to myself, in fetting out, to enter at all into the detail of the question; but one or two thoughts occur fo forcibly to my mind, that I must lay them before the Reader.

Much has been argued, by the advocates of reform, on the duty of going back to the Saxon fcheme of legislation, as the ancient government of our forefathers, and, as fuch, entitled to be followed by their pofterity. The inheritable nature of our rights and liberties has been eloquently enlarged upon by a man who, with a giant's strength, has stood between our Conftitution and its affaffins but this part of his argument our Saxon re

formifts