A LETTER FROM A WELSH FREEHOLDER. 
King without Commons, as Commons without King. The 
pernicious refolutions of Faxuary the twelfth are without prece- 
dent, becaufe unprovoked; the caufe ought to have been of the 
firft magnitude to have produced fuch effects, which involve all 
ranks in their deftructive confequence. They are like a {word 
which paffes undiftinguifhed between innocent and guilty. Your 
conftituents feel their fhare. All bufinefs is obftructed, and pof- 
fibly in a few days the whole army is to be let loofe on their fel- 
low fubjeéts. What crime has majefty or minifters committed, 
to bring on them and our country fuch calamities ? Has not year 
after year the King quietly affented to every bill paffed by the 
two other branches of legiftature for the weakening of his own 
power ? Had he had ill defigns, his own prerogative might have 
checked the abridgement of his authority. I inftance only the 
act for taking away the vote of revenue officers, and that for the 
abolition of the board of trade. The county of **** with great 
zeal petitioned for the taking away of ufelefs places. Had the 
inciters of thofe petitions, when they came into power, purfued 
the defign with the fame fincerity with which they were fupported 
by the duped counties, they would not have left room to fufpect 
that the defire of poflefling the emoluments of Lord North’s ad- 
rainiftration was not the chief end by them propofed. Let me 
name another merit of this reign, for the fecurity of our liberties, 
in which the Commons had no fhare, I mean the fpontaneous 
act of the crown which has made the judges independent of the. 
King by giving them their places for life. 
To thefe merits of the King, let me oppofe one glaring deme- 
rit of the Commons. . Did not the reprefentatives of the people,. 
in. 1716, betray their rights by the feptennial aét, and veft in 
themfelves 
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