1831.] Parliamentary Reform. 361 



that population was one of the early principles of constituency ; but 

 this is altogether an error. Every county alike, from the 23rd Edward I., 

 let its population be what it might, sent two members. And even when 

 the change under Cromwell took place, population seems to have been 

 neglected, for the more important purpose of returning partizans. Thus 

 Staffordshire had only three members, while Cornwall had eight. The 

 common conception, that the close boroughs are a corruption of their 

 original character, and that, having been once gifted with a right of 

 representation as populous places, they ought to lose that right with the 

 loss of that population, is an equal error. Even Old Sarum, from the 

 earliest records, 23rd Edward I., seems to have been nothing more at 

 the time than a castle, made a borough to entitle the Earl of Salisbury, 

 its holder, to have a representative in the House. So of others, Corfe 

 Castle, and Bishop's Castle, created by Queen Elizabeth at the suit of 

 Sir Christopher Hatton when he received the estates connected with 

 them. So of the Cornish boroughs. They were not created, as is sup- 

 posed, on account of the opulence or the population connected with the 

 tin mines. They were almost exclusively created by the Crown, for the 

 express purpose of guarding its own prerogatives in the House of Com- 

 mons. Cornwall was its own duchy, and there it placed its parliamen- 

 tary strength. So much for the idea that the bill which disfranchises 

 those boroughs is a restoration of the constitution of parliament. That 

 system may have been weak, or tyrannical, or corrupt j but the pro- 

 posed system is not a revival of the old principles of parliament : it is a 

 revolution. As the conclusion from those and similar facts which crowd 

 upon us from all parliamentary history, we arrive at these truths popu- 

 latron never was the basis of our representation property never was the 

 basis of our representation ; the constitution was not the work of any 

 single mind, nor assembly ; the kings who originally constructed or 

 renewed parliament, gave the franchise or divided the country according 

 to their own choice ; the true foundation of popular power being in the 

 House of Commons having the power of the purse, which made it 

 impossible for a king, mainly dependent on his people for his revenue, 

 to overthrow the national liberties. 



But it was alleged that the present system was a source of corruption 

 in the House. " Corruption/' said Sir Robert, "must be one of the 

 three kinds, by money, by place, or by party." First, as to money, he 

 demanded, te Was there any man, in or out of the House, who could 

 point to any member and say, that he believed, that on any one question 

 of public polity for the last fifty years any thing in the shape of money 

 has ever been tendered to him ? The thing is impossible. The thing 

 was not impossible two generations back. The secret-service money of 

 James II. was 90,000., in that day the twentieth part of the whole 

 revenue. The secret-service money of the present day is scarcely more 

 than the tenth part of that sum, and not more than a seven hundreth 

 part of the revenue. 



" For the corruption by places. There never was a period when there 

 were so few placemen in parliament, and the means of influence are 

 gradually, but regularly diminishing day by day. 



" The influence of party. There are now no parties. It is one of the 

 misfortunes of the day that there are no leading men to head parties, 

 and thus give stability to the government, and consistency to the oppo- 

 sition/' 



M.M. New Series. Voi,. XI. No. 64. 3 A 



