224 OUR SITUATION AND PROSPECTS. 



the uniformity with which every public struggle in England has 

 ended not in personal aggrandizement, but in popular advantage. It 

 will be remembered that such was the case at the accession of James I., 

 and that at the accession of Charles I. the first serious discontents 

 terminated in the Act called the PETITION OF RIGHT. The king may, 

 indeed, inflict upon us a Tory Government, but the representatives of 

 the people still have in their hands, now that the constitution is so 

 fully developed, the same powerful weapon which enabled their an- 

 cestors to establish it. " It is still,'' says Junius, " from their liberality 

 alone that the king can obtain subsidies : and now, when every thing is 

 rated by pecuniary estimation when gold is become the great moving 

 spring of affairs it may be safely affirmed, that he who depends on the 

 will of other men, with regard to so important an article, is, whatever 

 his power may be in other respects, in a state of real dependence. The 

 king of England," continues this eloquent writer, " has the preroga- 

 tive of commanding armies, and equipping fleets : but without the con- 

 currence of his parliament he cannot maintain them. He can bestow 

 places and employments ; but without his parliament he cannot pay 

 the salaries attending on them. He can declare war ; but without 

 his parliament it is impossible he can carry it on. In a word, the 

 royal prerogative, destitute as it is of the power of imposing taxes, is 

 like a vast body which cannot of itself accomplish its motions ; or, if you 

 please, it is like a ship completely equipped, but from which the par- 

 liament can, at pleasure, draw off the water, and leave it aground 

 and also set it afloat again, by granting subsidies." 



These maxims are especially worthy the attention of the electors of 

 Great Britain at the present crisis. The English constitution will pro- 

 bably never more be attacked in front, or its demolition attempted by 

 striking at the authority of the laws : and, if such an attack should be 

 made, their foundations are too deeply laid, and their superstructure 

 too firmly cemented, to make us apprehensive as to the event of the 

 contest. But this is not enough. The sentinels must not sleep. The 

 authority of the laws themselves may be turned against the spirit which 

 gave them birth, and the Government may be dissolved with all the 

 legal solemnities which its outward form prescribes for its preservation ; 

 and this mode of attack seems the more probable, as it affords a certain 

 degree of respect and safety to the besiegers of our liberties, although 

 infinitely more dangerous to the people, because the consciences of 



