30ft COLONIAL POLICY. 



also acts as a check upon his conduct. But the appointment of the 

 legislative council is not equally faultless. There exists no class 

 of men in a colony, from whom can be selected a body who may assi- 

 milate to the aristocratic branch of the legislature at home. By an 

 aristocratic body, I not only understand a set of well-educated men, 

 but a body whose political power and influence in the colony may be 

 felt beyond the walls of the chamber they occupy, owing to their per- 

 manent private property. I do not hesitate to say, that there exists no 

 such class in any of our North American colonies : whom then does the 

 legislative council represent ? 



Of what import can be their deliberations ? Their political in- 

 fluence ceases at the threshold of their chamber ; they have no weight 

 in the consideration of the people. Upon an examination of the names 

 of those who compose the legislative council, it will be observed that 

 the members have been selected from the civil functionaries under 

 government, and from amongst the most wealthy merchants; and 

 these persons are appointed for life, without regard to the caprices of 

 fortune, in mercantile speculations ; so that it may happen that a legis- 

 lative councillor may become a bankrupt. Whether merchants in 

 their most prosperous days should be members or not of such a 

 house, I will not venture an opinion ; at any rate, a merchant whose 

 private affairs are not in a good condition, ought not to be considered 

 the proper person to be entrusted with so much power. * In fine, 

 that body, as it is now composed, is a clumsy imitation of our house 

 of peers, comprising all its defects and possessing none of its impor- 

 tant advantages. The measures of the legislative council have only 

 the effect of taking for a moment the odium and the responsibility 

 from the shoulders of the governor, and transferring the animosity of 

 the colonists towards the government at home ; and their interfer- 

 ference considerably adds to the difficulty of carrying on the ma- 

 chinery of colonial legislation. 



The representative of majesty requires no support no interlopers 

 between him and the representatives of the people. He should rely 

 solely upon the king and the parliament of Great Britain for the sup- 

 port of his dignity and power, Being appointed by the sovereign, he 

 can maintain his rank and station in the colony, without the assistance 

 of an intermediate branch of the legislature. It is different in a re- 

 public like that of the United States ; there the president, deriving his 

 power directly from the people, it becomes necessary to have an in- 

 termediate branch of the legislature elected for a longer period, and 

 in a different manner, than are the representatives of the people, in 

 order to guard equally between their hasty democratic resolutions and 

 the ambition of the first magistrate, or his truckling to the caprices of 

 the people. Recollect that, in that government, a majority of two- 

 thirds in Congress renders invalid the president's veto to any bill ; 

 therefore, it is doubly necessary that there should exist a second 

 chamber, or senate. Not so in our colonies, where the chief magis- 



* Let not the governor of the plantation (say Lord Bacon) depend upon too 

 many councillors and undertakers in the country that planteth, but upon a tem- 

 perate number, and let those be rather noblemen and gentlemen than merchants. 

 for they look ever to the present gaiu. 



