perfonal fafety and quiet, without abandoning his ambitious projects, has thought proper rather to conceal his operations than to retire from action. To oppose them is, therefore, to oppofe him. We have alfo, faid they, additional motives for our oppofition from the fraud that is endeavoured to be put upon us; and it concerns the credit of our understanding, as well as that of our fpirit, not to fuffer this fcheme of clandeftine adminiftration.

They were, probably, much miftaken in the idea they had formed of the principles which produced the late change, and the prefent miniftry. But whether the idea of the fubferviency of the ministry to a concealed intereft was credited by all the party, as they pretended, or not, the effect was the fame; and it could not be otherwife. The two parties, quarrelling about their common object, power, had been by their feveral fituations obliged to adopt very different fyftems of politics.

The friends of lord B. and of the miniftry which fucceeded, were for preferving to the crown the full exercife of a right, of which none difputed the validity, that of appointing its own fervants. Thofe of the oppofition did not deny this power in the crown, but they contended that the fpirit of the conftitution required, that the crown fhould be directed in the exercise of this public duty by public motives, and not by private liking and friendship. That great talents, great and eminent fervices to the nation, confidence amongst the nobility, and influence amongst the landed and mercantile interefts, were the directions, which the

crown ought to obferve in the exercife of its right in nominating officers of ftate. The obfervation of this rule would, and, they were of opinion, nothing else could, in any degree, counterballance that immenfe power, which the crown has acquired by the gift of fuch an infinite number of profitable places. Nothing but the very popular use of the prerogative can be fufficient to reconcile the nation to the extent of it; and they will be highly diffatisfied, whenever they fee their affairs in the hands of any fet of men (though appointed according to the ftricteft letter of the law,) in whom they have not an entire confidence. When they fee administration settled with an attention to this popular confidence, and with a condefcenfion to public opinion, they have a fecurity in which they can acquiefce, that no attempts will be made against the conflitution. Minifters, too, when they find that they are recommended to the royal favour, and, as it were, prefented to their places, by the efteem of the people, will be ftudious to acquire, and anxious to preferve, it. That thefe are the principles of whigs, and upon them the government has been conducted honourably for the crown, and advantageously for the people, ever fince the revolution; and things can never be at repose, until they fettle again upon the fame bafis.

Whether thefe ideas, on which feveral acted, and which fome freely avowed, be confiftent with the preservation of any degree of monarchical authority in the commonwealth, the reader is left to judge. It is, indeed, not altogether easy to determine whether the limitations

on

on the executive power ought or ought not to be extended further, by any other fort of popular controul, than the laws themselves have carried them; for as, on one hand, a constitution may be loft, whilft all its forms are preferved; on the other, it seems repugnant to the genius of every ftable government to conduct itself by any other principles, than thofe which clear law has established, or to direct its actions by fo uncertain, variable, and capricious a ftandard, as that of popular opinion.

What has been now faid, we think fufficient to afford the reader a very tolerable general idea of the principles real or pretended, of the of the feveral parties, which have for fome time unhappily divided the nation, and of thofe topics, which have been agitated with fo much heat and violence fince the conclufion of the peace.

The public papers have given accounts (in what manner authenticated does not appear) of a very extraordinary negotiation, which commenced immediately on the death of lord Egre27th of mont, in order to bring Auguft. about, if poffible, a

coalition between the leaders of the contending parties. This negotiation continued but for a very fhort time, and is faid to have broken off in as extraordinary a manner as it began. It has yet had no fort of vifible effect; but as the difpofitions, which gave rife to it, must one time or another produce fomething confiderable, we referve the narration of this affair, until the public can acquire a more exact knowledge of the facts,, and a more correct notion of the plan of polities which produced

that the

them, and until we have before our eyes the confequences which have arifen from them. Our bufinefs is not fpeculation, but narrative. We must however remark, that this negotiation feems to have difcovered to the world, what fome people hefore ftrongly fufpected, fubfifting administration did, from the beginning, by no means act ander the influence, and, perhaps, not altogether in concurrence with the opinion of the great minister, whose refignation had raised them to the direction of affairs. They appear indeed to ftand upon quite another bottom. What that bottom is, we are not furnished with the proper materials to determine; neither, perhaps, is it confiftent with the character of our undertaking to attempt any enquiry of this nature. At that time the fyftem of the miniftry was no way changed- On the contrary, its strength feemed to be confiderably increased by the acquifition of the D. of B. one of the most powerful men in England, from his property and the firmness of his character, who accepted the place of prefident of the council, which had been fome time kept vacant. Lord Sandwich took the feals as one of the fecretaries of ftate. And lord E. who was removed in the late change from the poft-office to the admiralty, was a man of public fpirit to enthufiafm; and was univerfally acknowledged one of the best informed of the whole body of the nobility.

There appear to be at prefent three parties ftruggling for fupcriority in the state; thofe who fupport the adminiftration, as it is now conftituted; thofe who wish the return of the E. of B. to the

lead

lead in public bufinefs; and thofe who ftill adhere to that fyftem, which directed every thing during the latter part of the late reign.

These parties feem, for the prefent, to be fo equally ballanced, that each of them has force enough to diftrefs, without being able to deftroy, any one of the others, or to drive them into any terms of extreme fubmiffion. But the union of any two of them would, undoubtedly, be fufficient to overturn the third; and it is probable, that from fome fuch com

bination a permanent fcheme of administration will be formed, and the public tranquillity at length fettled upon fome fure foundation. It is impoffible, that fo nice a ballance of party power, depending, too, upon fo many nice circumftances, can long continue in the fame fituation. It would be abfurd to imagine it. But what two of the parties will engage in the confederacy, and in whofe favour the ballance will ultimately incline, it may not be quite fo easy to conjecture.

HAVI AVING given fome account of our domeftic politics, to compleat the plan of this work, it will be neceflary to lay before the reader a fhort ftate of foreign tranfactions, and of the condition and defigns of the powers on the continent, fo far as they feem difpofed to fhew any degree of activity We hall, by this method, be better enabled to judge of public events, as they fhall fucceffively arife.

Auguftus III. king of Poland, and elector of Saxony, on the conclufion of the peace of Hubertsbourg, returned to his hereditary dominions, from whence he had been exiled for fix years. Unfortunatly for him, he had engaged in defigns too vaft for his power or his capacity; and had entered into that kind of alliance,

in which the weak parts are always moft injuriously treated in time of war, and leaft indemnified upon a peace. Flying from his country, and leaving his palace and his family in the poffeffion of his enemies, he had retired to Poland, where his authority, by the conftitution not very highly respected, was by his misfortunes rendered ftill more conte ptible; and he there endured a continual feries of croffes and contradictions. He had the misfortune to find, that the king of Pruffia, who had feized by force of arms upon one part of his dominions, was by influence and policy far fuperior to him in, and had, in a manner, acquired the government of, the other. His queen confort died in a fort of captivity, overcome with the alarms, the vexations, and the

indignities which she suffered. One of his fons, for whom he propofed an establishment in the duchy of Courland, was depofed almoft as foon as he was elected. Another, whom he fet as up candidate for the bishoprick of Liege, was foiled in that purfuit; fo that broken down by almost every kind of misfortune, and having fuffered, in every thing, which could affect his intereft or his affections, as a fovereign, hufband, or father, it is no wonder that his conftitution, already impaired by age, at length gave way. He fell into a kind of lethargic drowfinefs, and died on the 5th of October in the 67th year of his age, and about thirty years from his election to the crown of Poland,

The death of this prince occafioned a vacancy in the throne of Poland; to fill which, agreeably to their defires and intercits, is one of the great objects of politics to moft of the confiderable powers in the north. At the fame time an election of a king of the Romans is on foot.

Those two elective fovereignties not only occafion many mischiefs to thofe who live under them, but have frequently involved a great part of Europe in blood and confufion. Indeed, thefe exifting examples, prove beyond all fpeculation, the infinite fuperiority, in every refpect, of hereditary monarchy; fince it is evident, that the method of election conftantly produces all thofe inteftine divifions, to which, by its nature, it appears fo liable, and alfo fails in that, which is one of its principal objects, and which might be expected from it, the fecuring go

vernment for many fucceffions in the hands of perfons of extraordinary merit and uncommon capacity. We find by experience, that thofe kingdoms, where the throne is an inheritance, have had, in their feries of fucceffion, full as many able princes to govern them, as either Poland or Germany, which are elective.

It must be obferved, however, that the latter of these countries has provided, either by defign or accident, much better against the inconveniencies of an election, than the former. The electors in Germany are very few, (in all but nine) and they are all great princes. So that the method of chufing an emperor has nothing tumultuous in it, and rather resembles a negotiation between fovereign ftates, than a popular election of a fupreme magiftrate.

There is another particular, in which the German constitution, in this refpect, greatly exceeds the Polifh; which is, that the majority, of voices determines the election, whereas in Poland, where the number of electors is exceedingly great, unanimity is required in the choice of a king, as in all their public deliberations of whatfoever nature. Befides, by a very prudent precaution, in Germany, the fucceffor, under the name of king of the Romans, is commonly chofen in the life of the reigning emperor. Every thing is prepared, and infinite confufion is thereby avoided. What evils might in the empire arife from a want of this precau tion, may be judged, not only from the example of Poland, where they never would admit this ufage, but from the misfortunes which have fo recently happened

upon

upon the death of the emperor Charles VI. without male iffue, or the previous election of a kiug of the Romans.

In reality, the German conftitution is as nearly perfect as can be expected in a commonwealth of fovereign princes, or federal union of feveral monarchies and republics under a common head. Such an union, confidered in itself, might, indeed, seem very useless, or, in fome refpects, dangerous; but the extreme inequality of the fovereignties, which compofe the Germanic body, makes it abfolutely neceffary to the freedom of all the leffer members, that there fhould be a confiderable power vested in the chief of the union, acting by the authority of the whole, to prevent the violence and injuftice of the ftronger. This power is, perhaps, too weak perfectly to accomplish its ends; but ftill it is of fome ufe.

Poland feems to be a country formed to give the most difadvantageous idea of liberty, by the extreme to which it is carried, and the injuftice with which it is diftributed The conftitution of this republic is defcribed in too many modern books to make it neceffary. to enter in this place into a long detail concerning it. The only real power of the ftate is vefted in the gentry, or, as they call them, the Equeftrian order; this power they exercife by their reprefentatives in their diets, or parliaments, which the king is obliged to call triennially, where all refolutions must be paffed unanimously, a tribunitial power, as it is generally known, being vefted in each member, who can put a stop to all pub

lic proceedings, by his fingle no gative.

Each noble Pole feems rather an independent fovereign than a citizen. He has a voice at the election of a king, and may himfelf be elected king. He is abfolute mafter of life and death on his own eftate, all his tenants being, in the stricteft fense, his flaves. His houfe is a fanctuary, not only for himself, but for all others; civil juftice, and even criminal, can with great difficulty reach him in any cafe; in fhort, he enjoys privileges fo incompatible with all regular government, that one of their own writers ufes it as a ftrong proof of the natural good difpofition of the Polish nobility, that, with fuch an unbounded licence, the most horrid diforders are not more frequent amongst them.

The power of the king is extremely limited. He can do nothing of great importance, but with the confent of the diet; and fcarcely the moft minute act without the approbation of the fenate. The choice, indeed, of this fenate is in himfelf, but he can never revoke the choice when once made. The fenate is composed of a certain number of bishops, (whom he nominates) fenators by right of their fee, and of Palatines, or governors of provinces, of whom he has likewife the appointment. But they hold their places for life, and are, in general, a great check upon, though in fome inftances they have proved a fupport to, the authority of the crown.

All the great offices of Poland being as permanent as the royalty itself, thofe, who are invefted with them, are invefted with almost the

whole