share in the legislature of the country, was a thing incompatible with the population and state of the kingdom. The practical definition of what the populur branch of our legislature was at this day, he took to be precisely this: An assembly freely elected, between whom and the mass of the people there was the closest union and most perfect sympathy. Such a House of Commons it was the purpose of the constitution originally to erect, and such a House of Commons it was the wish of every reformer now to establish. Those who went farther-those who went to ideas of individual representation, deluded themselves with impossibilities, and took the attention of the public from that sober, and practicable path in which they might travel safely, and with ease, to launch them into an unbounded sea, where they had no pilot to direct, and no star to guide them.

Solicitous as he was of reform, he never could countenance vague and unlimited notions. It was his wish to see the House adopt a sober and practicable scheme, which should have for its basis the original principle of representation, and should produce the object which every lover of our constitution must have in view-a House of Commons between whom and the people there should exist the same interest, and the most perfect sympathy and union. It was his purpose to see an arrangement made, which, while it corrected the present inadequate state of representation, should keep it adequate when made so, and should give to the constitution purity, consistency, and, if possible, immortality. Such was the sanguine idea which he entertained from his project, and such he trusted would be the sentiment of the House upon its exposition. Whatever argument might be adduced against its practicability, and what against its expediency, he trusted that the old argument of innovation would not be alleged. As he had said, it was not an innovation; and he was sure that gentlemen would agree with him in this sentiment, when they turned their eyes with him back to the earliest periods of our history, and traced the practice of our ancestors in the purest days. He considered it on such a review, as one of the most indisputable doctrines of antiquity, that the state of representation was

to be changed with the change of circumstances. As far back as the period of the reign of Edward I., which was the first time when they could trace distinct descriptions of men in the representation, the doctrine of change was clearly understood. The counties were not uniform; the number of members was frequently varied; and from that period to the reign of Charles II., there were few reigns in which representation was not varied, and in which it did not undergo diminutions or fluctuations of some kind or other. Those changes were owing to the discretion which was left in the executive branches of the legislature, to summon or not to summon whom they pleased to parliament. The execu tive branch of the legislature was vested with this discretion on no other principle, than that the places, which might for the time being have such a share in the general scale of the people, as should entitle them, or rather subject them, to the duty of sending members to the representative body, might be appointed to do so. In this very discretionary power the principle of alteration was visible, and it manifested the original notion which our forefathers had of representation to be this:- That whereas it was impossible that every individual of a populous country could make choice of a representative, the task should be committed to such bodies of men as might be collected together in communities in the several districts of the kingdom: and as such communities must from their nature be fluctuating and moveable, that the crown should have the discretion of pointing out which of them were proper from their size and scale, to execute this duty for the rest. Every man must acknowledge that to have exercised this discretion otherwise than soundly, must have been a high grievance; and he needed not to say, that if it were now vested in the crown, and that ministers might fix on such places as they pleased for the choice of members, there was not a man in England who would not consider the liberties of his country as extinguished. Such discretion, however, did exist, and he mentioned it to shew, that principles in representation had been departed from, and had their existence no longer. The argument against change was an argument against the experience of every

period of our history. There had not been of late any addition to the county share in the representation, except, indeed of the palatines, of the principality of Wales, and of another addition which had been made since the period at which it was common to say that our constitution was fixed, the Revolution, namely, the addition of all that part of the United Kingdom called Scotland.

But in the borough representation the changes had been infinitely more common. Gentlemen had undoubtedly read, that, of the boroughs which used formerly to send members to parliament, seventy-two had been disfranchised, that was to say, that the crown had ceased to summon them at general elections to return burgesses to the House of Commons. After the restoration, thirty-six of these boroughs petitioned parliament to be restored to the exercise of their ancient franchise; their prayer was granted, and to this day they continue to enjoy it. But the other thirtysix, not having presented any petition on the subject, had not recovered their lost franchise. Upon this he would be bold to say, that, considering the restoration of the former, and the continued deprivation of the latter, the spirit of the constitution had been grossly violated, if it was true (but which he denied) that the extension to one set of boroughs of the franchise of returning members to parliament, and the resumption of it from others, was a violation of the constitution. For if the numbers could not originally have been constitutionally increased, so they could not constitutionally have been diminished. But having been once diminished, to restore them might by some be said to make an innovation; and if the parliament had any authority to restore the franchise, the principle of restoration ought to have been extended to the seventytwo boroughs, and not confined to one half of them. Here then it appeared manifest, that the whole was governed by a principle which militated directly against the modern doctrine, that to do what had been constantly done for ages, by the wisest of our ancestors, was to innovate upon the constitution. The seventy-two boroughs in question had discontinued to return members, because they had fallen into decay. Thirty-six of them afterwards recovered their franchise, when they recovered their former

wealth and population; but the other thirty-six, not having renovated their former vigour and consequence in the state, remained to this day deprived of the franchise which had been taken from them, when they lost the wealth and population, on account of which they had originally obtained it.

Why then was there a greater objection to any change in the representation of certain boroughs now, than there had been in former periods? Why were they more sacred now than the thirty-six boroughs which had been disfranchised, and which had no share at present in the representation of the country? The arguments that influenced gentlemen against any change at this time, would have equally operated against the thirty-six boroughs which had from time to time been extinguished, as well as against the same number, which, having been abolished, were from a change of their circumstances, reinstated in their privilege. In those earlier periods, such was the notion of representation, that as one borough decayed, and another arose, the one was abolished, and the other invested with the right; and alterations took place from accident or caprice, which, however, so far as they went, stood good and valid. The alterations were not made by principle; they did not arise from any fixed rule laid down and invariably pursued, but they were founded in that notion which gave the discretionary power to the crown, viz. that the principal places, and not the decayed boroughs, should be called upon to exercise the right of election.

He contended, therefore, that the same notion should now prevail, but that it should be rescued from that accident and caprice in which it had before been involved; that the alteration should be made on principle; and that they should establish this as a clear and external axiom in representation-that it should always be the same-that it should not depend upon locality or name, but upon number and condition, and that a standard should be fixed for its size. He would submit to the world which of the two was most anxious for the preservation of the original principle of the constitution, he who was for maintaining the exterior, and name of representation, when the substance was gone, or he, who pre

ferring the substance and reality of representation to the name and exterior, was solicitous of changing its seat from one part of the country to another, as one place might flourish and another decay? It was his idea, that if they could deduce any good principles from theory, and apply them to practice, it was their duty to do so. It was then the theory, and it had been the practice, in all times, to adapt the representation to the state of the country; and this was exactly what it was his intention to recommend to the House. Now and in all future time to adapt the representation to the state of the country, was the idea of reform which he entertained.

Perhaps gentlemen would be apt to exclaim that this contradicted the declaration with which he set out, viz. that the plan which he meant to propose would be final and complete. When they came, however, to hear the whole of his idea, he trusted they would find that his proposition had in view not only an immediate reform, but that it comprehended an arrangement which must operate in all future time, and provide for the changes which in the nature of things must incessantly arise in a country like Britain. He wished to establish a permanent rule to operate like the discretion, out of which our present constitution had sprung. That discretion would be very improper to exist now, though in ruder times it was not so dangerous, when representation was rather a burthen than a privilege, rather a duty than an object of ambition. For that discretion he was no advocate; but he wished to remind gentlemen, that that discretionary power had never been wrested from the hands of the executive branch of the legislature, and that to this day there existed but the act of union to prevent the crown from adding to or diminishing the number of that House. By the act of union, the proportionate numbers for the two parts of the kingdom were fixed, and from the date of that act, but not till that act, the discretion of the crown was at an end. The argument of withstanding all reformation, from the fear of the ill consequences that might ensue, made gentlemen come to a sort of compromise with themselves. "We are sensible of certain defects; we feel certain inconveniencies in the present state of