704 



BRITAIN. 



The parliament is not permanent, but it is the royal 

 prerogative to summon and dissolve it. It is regu- 

 larly summoned by the king's writ or letter, issued out 

 of chancery, addressed to each peer individually, and 

 to the sheriff of each county, and of the cities and 

 boroughs in the same. The sessions are held in the 

 old royal palace in Westminster, where each house 

 has its chamber. The first session is attended by the 

 king, who sits in person in the upper house, and, by 

 himself or the lord cliancellor, shows the reason of 

 their meeting ; the speech from the throne is answered 

 by an address from each house. After taking the 

 oath of supremacy and the oath of allegiance, the 

 commons choose a speaker and a committee of five 

 persons (on the privileges of the house, petitions, con- 

 tested elections, commerce, and the church) ; they 

 then proceed to any other business that may come 

 before them. In the upper house the lord chancellor 

 presides ; the lords have the right of voting by proxy. 

 Each house manages its own concerns, and any mat- 

 ter may be proposed in either house, except that all 

 grants of subsidies or parliamentary aids begin in the 

 house of commons, and the lords have not even the 

 right of making an amendment to a money bill ; they 

 can only reject or accept it. (For the mode of mak- 

 ing laws in parliament, see Statute.) As the parlia- 

 ment is summoned, so it is prorogued, by the royal 

 authority, expressed either by the lord chancellor in 

 his majesty's presence, or by commission from the 

 crown, or by proclamation. Both houses are pro- 

 rogued at the same time. A dissolution of the parlia- 

 ment is effected either by the authority of the crown 

 or by the demise of the crown, or by length of time 

 The house of commons being chosen but for seven 

 years, at the expiration of that time parliament is dis- 

 solved ipso facto. So it determines within six month 

 of the death of the king, if not previously dissolved by 

 his successor. It has already been mentioned, tha 

 parliament takes an important part in the executive 

 and judicial administration ; the lower house, having 

 the entire disposal of all grants of money, has the di- 

 rection of all financial concerns ; and there is no sub- 

 ject which may not be brought before it by petition 

 complaint, or motion of a member. The upper house 

 is the supreme court of judicature in the nation. To 

 this authority it succeeded on the dissolution of th 

 aula regia. The barons of parliament were members 

 of that court, and, the rest of its jurisdiction being 

 dealt out to other tribunals, the right of receiving 

 appeals, and superintending all other jurisdictions, stil 

 remained in the residue of that assembly, from whic) 

 every other court was derived. In civil cases, it i 

 the supreme court of appeal from the superior tribu 

 nals of England, Ireland, and Scotland. Appeals an 



writs of error from the superior courts of the foreign 

 ominions (the isles of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, and 

 he colonies), are carried up to the king in his privy 

 ouncil. In indictments for treason or 1'clony, or mis- 

 jrision thereof, where the accused is a peer of the 

 ealm, the house of lords are the judges of the law 

 and the fact ; or if the trial is in the court of the lord 

 igh steward, the peers-triers are only judges of the 

 act. The dignity of lord high steward was formerly 

 lereditary, but he is now appointed merely for the 

 >articular case. In cases of impeachment by the house 

 if commons, the house of lords are also, the judges. 

 All the forms of a criminal trial are then observed, 

 and the verdict must be by a mnjority of at least 

 welve votes. The marquis of Hastings, governor- 

 ^eneral of India, was tried by this tribunal on an im- 

 peachment of extortion and cruelty ; Dundas (viscount 

 Melville), secretary of war, as guilty of high crimes 

 and misdemeanors, in the office of treasurer of the 

 navy; and the duke of York, as generalissimo, for 

 the imputed sale of commissions. Still different from 

 this judicial capacity of the house of lords, is the right 

 of passing a bill of attainder, the consequences of 

 which are forfeiture of property and corruption of 

 ilood, or a bill of pains and penalties, which is of a 

 ,ess severe character. This right can be exercised in 

 ither house (in the case of the late queer. Caroline, 

 the bill was passed in the upper house.) Before it can 

 ake effect, however, the bill must pass through both 

 douses, and receive the king's assent. For an ac- 

 count of the judiciary system of Britain, see Courts, 

 Equity, Assize, Jury, Common Law, Criminal Law, 

 &c. See, also, Blackstone's Commentaries. 



The Rights of the People of Britain. The abso- 

 lute rights of every Briton are, by English writers, 

 reduced to three principal heads the right of per- 

 sonal security, the right of personal liberty, and the 

 right of private property. No man shall be inter- 

 rupted in the legal enjoyment of his life, his body, 

 his health, his reputation, nor limited in his personal 

 freedom, without due course of law ; nor be deprived 

 of the free use and disposal of his acquisitions, save by 

 the laws of the land. These rights have been asserted 

 and confirmed, from time to tune, by a series of acts, 

 beginning with the Magna Charta, and ending with 

 the Bill of Rights, which are not to be considered as 

 the origin of these rights, but merely as the acknow- 

 ledgment of their existence. Among the principal 

 securities of British freedom are, 1. the establish- 

 ed principle, tliat no man's liberty can be restrained 

 by the government further than the law allows ; 2. 

 the many offices of consequence in the civil adminis- 

 tration, which are exercised by the people themselves, 

 such as those of the justices of the peace, the jury, 

 the grand jury, the offices in the municipal adminis- 

 tration, and, above all, the right of assembling, at 

 pleasure, for the purpose of discussion. The personal 

 responsibility of public officers, and the celebrated 

 habeas corpus act, are great securities against arbi- 

 trary encroachment. But the chief protection is the 

 liberty of the press. 



The Administration of the Government also bears 

 many traces of its Saxon origin. The king is the 

 supreme head of the state in peace and war, the lord 

 paramount of the soil, the fountain of justice and ho- 

 nour, and the supreme head of the church. As a con- 

 stituent part of the supreme legislative power, he has 

 the prerogative of rejecting such bills in parliament 

 as he judges improper to be passed. This prerogative, 

 however, lias never been exercised since the year 

 1692. As the generalissimo, or the first in military 

 command within the kingdom, he has the sole power 

 of raising and regulating fleets and armies, which, 

 however, is virtually controlled by the necessity he is 

 under of obtaining supplies from parliament. As the 



