ESSAY

ON THE

CONSTITUTION OF ENGLAND.

OMNIA ORTIA OCCIDUNT, ET AUCTA SENESCUNT.

SALUST

LONDON:

Printed for T. BECKET, and P. A. DE HONDT, at Tully's Head in the Strand.-1765.

Re-printed by W. A. Wright, 12, Fulwood's Rents, Holborn.

so: an error which would not so readily be fallen into by one who has nothing but his own natural sagacity and daily observation to conduct him.

In all countries which pretend to be governed by the help of written laws, it is the common opinion that the constitution of those countries, and the rights of the rulers and ruled, are established and ascertained by those their laws and ancient customs. If this were the case, a very moderate share of reading would qualify a man of a tolerable memory to be a very profound statesman. But unhappily, the reverse of this is true, the laws being not the makers, but the creatures of the constitution and of the constituents of government, who either make or abolish, alter or explain, as best pleases them; or without taking the trouble of either altering or explaining, support the execution of some laws, and oppose the execution of others, as they happen to be led by the present humour or conveniency. When this at any time happens, in opposition to any prince or minister, however sincerely he may be persuaded that he acts according to the constitution of his country, he would do well to contemplate the event as a proof of the contrary, and to endeavour, with all speed, to find out where his error lies.

Before I proceed to the application of these general principles, in an enquiry into the constitution of any particular country, it may be necessary to say something farther towards explaining some of the terms I have used; which, though common, are perhaps understood by me in a more extensive sense than usual. By the major vis, or superior force of a society, by which the government is constituted, I mean, simply, a superior power of inflicting bodily destruction, pain or confinement; these being the ways in which all penalties for disobedience to government are exacted, and of course, all commands made effectual. And, whether this power is in the hands of a few, or of many, of the rich or the poor, of the wise or the foolish: whether they who possess it are cardinals of Rome, palatins of Poland, janisaries of Constantinople, or burghers of Geneva, they are equally what I mean by the constituents of government.

SECTION II.

Although every society has its constitution, that is, a certain relation among the several members that compose its government; yet the word constitution is seldom heard, except in those countries where, by the constituent power being much diffused, government becomes a common subject of speculation. But no where has it been more used, or its meaning more disputed, than in England, especially for these hundred years past; and this from several causes. Of these, one is, that men have been led by different party-interests and prejudices, to set forth some parts of the constitution, and stifle others, according as they best promoted their particular views; but the greatest cause of their disagreement, and which extended itself to the most disinterested, was, that the subject itself had been gradually and imperceptibly changing; so that, were the disputants ever so knowing, and ever so candid, unless they had confined their disquisitions to a certain year, month and day of the month, on which this constitution is supposed to be measured, they must have ever been at cross purposes.

There was a time when the constituents of the English government were a few great land-holders, called barons; whose force, when the major part of it was united against the king, was capable to put chains upon both him and the people, of whom the greatest number were upon all occasions acknowledged to be their slaves or villains, and, in a political sense, had no more right to be reckoned amongst the people of England, than the oxen that assisted them in ploughing their masters' lands. This was the time of that so much boasted Magna Charta, most boasted by those who never read it. Those who have, can see that it is not at all in favour of what is fondly called the natural

liberty of mankind, and only calculated for the benefit of the few landed tyrants who extorted it from their weak sovereign.

Such was in general the state of the constituents, and of the constitution, for some reigns after the conquest; in which the contest betwixt the king and a party of his barons was waged with various success, as there happened to be an adroit and resolute king to disunite and crush the opposing barons, or an adroit and resolute head of their faction, to make him feel their

united power.

The imperfect manner in which the transactions of those early ages are transmitted to us, leaves us much in the dark concerning the real motives of the men, or bodies of men, engaged in them. In such cases we are obliged, for want of facts, to help ourselves out, as we can, by analogies, drawn from times of which we have a nearer and more exact knowledge. In these we find, with very few exceptions, that the chief motive of men, for engaging in political contests, is the hope of superiority; and that the causes alleged are seldom other than mere pretexts, often so shallow as to impose upon nobody. We must not, therefore, believe that the men of those ages of which I am now treating, were so foolish, as to hazard their own lives, and the bread of their wives and children, for the preference of a white rose to a red; or, for what was almost equally insignificant to the greatest part of them, the ambiguous rights of the houses of York and Lancaster. It is much more probable that each of the combatants fought for the advancement of his own house; and that the royal rights, as well as the roses, were nothing more than mere symbols, by which each faction was enabled to distinguish its own partizans, from those of its adversary.

About the time of HENRY the Seventh, the lands, which, at that time, were the only valuable property of the nation, began to be parcelled out into a great number of hands; and into a still greater in the following reign, by means which it is foreign to my purpose to relate. Whatever the causes were, the constituents, by this splitting of lands, became so numerous, and so dispersed, that it was no longer possible for them to unite

their forces against the crown, which, while this equilibrio lasted, ruled all affairs at home and abroad in an absolute and

uncontrouled manner.

Queen ELIZABETH, with the title of a limited monarch, was as unlimited as any Czarina; and had nothing to apprehend for her person or government, but from secret plots or assassination, to which those who rule with the fewest partners are the most liable. Her weakened grandees feared and respected her; her house of commons, little different, at that time, from the estates of France, met chiefly to assess themselves for the support of government, without being admitted to any share in the administration of it, while her people, having never tasted of political power, under its softer and more specious name of Liberty, busied themselves only about their own affairs.

Thus it was was in the golden days of Queen BESS, whose reign, prosperous to herself, will ever hold a respectable place in the annals of England; and it is no wonder: for she ruled her people as it pleased God to permit her; that is, according to the actual constitution of her country at the time; availing herself of her situation with prudence and fortitude, without which no prince's situation can be very safe or advantageous.

SECTION III.

It is common with men to form very general principles upon a very narrow experience; especially when they happen to favour their own vanity or interest. King JAMES, from observing that his immediate predecessors on the English throne had not been controuled, brought himself to believe, not only that they were uncontroulable, but that their power, merely the effect of accidents, was necessarily attached, by the name of prerogative, to their crown and dignity, by the fundamental laws of the land, the laws of nature and nations, and the laws of God himself; splendid rights, which being now devolved upon him, he was not of a disposition to relinquish.

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