Mr. Evfkine on the Houfe of Commons. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
DissERTATION on” the ORIGIN of the 
ENGLISH HOUSE OF COMMONS, de- 
hivered before THE MASTER, Fet- 
LOWS, AND SCHOLARS of TRINITY 
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, im Fune 1777, 
\ 
> By the Honourable Tuomas ERsk1NeE, 
Lo which the firft Prize of the Year was 
adjudged. 
HE Englifh° Houfe of Commons 
arofe gradually out of the feodal te- 
nures as introduced at the Conquett. 
Many of the wifeft and warmetft affert- 
ors of equal government have been fond of 
looking back to the Saxon annals for the 
origin of the Englith conftitution ; and, 
without the warrant of hiftory or tradi- 
tion, have confidered the rife of our liber- 
ties under the Normans, as only the 
reftoration of immunities fubverted by 
the conqueft. This opinion, however, 
has been propagated by its authors, nei- 
ther from a decided conviétion on the one 
hand, nora blind admiration of antiquity 
onthe other: a very generous, but mif- 
taken motive, has often rendered it popu- 
lar and energetic ; it has been oppoled in 
time of public danger to the arguments 
of thofe enemies to their country, and 
indeed to all mankind, who have branded 
the facred privileges wreited by cur pa- 
triot anceftors from the firft Norman 
princes, as the fruits of fuccefsful rebel- 
lions. 
But, although the principle is to be 
applauded, the error cannot; and in this 
enlightened age, happily need not be de- 
fended: the rights of mankind can never 
be made to depend on the times of their 
being vindicated with fuccefs; they are 
facred and immutable; they are the gift 
of heaven; and whether appropriated for, 
the firft time to day, or enjoyed beyond 
thé reach of annals, the title to them is 
| €qually incentrovertible: one mdividual 
may forfeit his property to another from 
fupinenefs, and ufurpation may ftrengthen 
into risht by prefcription; but humer: 
privileges in the grofs cannot be {fo 
{patched away; there is. no ftatute of 
limitation * to bar the claims of nature: 

* There are certain limitations of time 
‘fixed by ftatute in the reigns of Henry VIII. 
and James I. beyond which the fubject (and 
the king by a late aét) cannct apply to the 
Courts of juftice to regain the pofleffion of 
landed propeity, to recover perfonal, debts 
and damages, or to redrefs private wrongs. 
Thefe atts are called in law pleadings, the 
flatutes of limitation. 
Monru, Mac, No, xxx, 
rendered up at the Norrhan 
247 
Jet us not, therefore, from a patriot zeal, 
involve ourfelves in the faint evidences of 
probability, but be contented to trace our 
political conftitution from a fource within 
the reach of moral demonftration. ‘There 
is'more honour in having freed ourfelves 
from tyranny than in always having been 
free. 
We know with certainty, that the 
axons had parliaments, but we know, 
with equal certainty, that the people at 
large had no reprefentative fhare im them : 
the bulk of the nation were either vaffals 
under the feodal lords, or Allodii + under 
the king’s government; the firft, being 
abfolute flaves to their mafters, could not 
‘pretend to become political rulers, and 
the laft being not even united by the 
feodal bond to the cominunity, could have 
no fuffrages in the feodal councils: the 
Saxon lords, indeed, were free, but for 
that very reafon, there was no pubiic 
liberty ; the government was highly ari- 
ftocratical, there was no fhadow of that 
equal communion of privileges founded 
on legiflative inftitutions, which confti- 
tutes freedom upon Enelifh principles, by 
which all who are the objects of the law 
muft perfonally, or by reprefentation, be 
the makers of the laws: this principle, 
which may juftly be denominated the very 
eflence of our prefent government, neither 
did nor could poffibly exift till the proud 
feodal chieftains, bending under an acci- 
dental preffure, were obliged to facrifice, 
their pride to neceflity, and their tyranny 
to felf- prefervation. 
But before our inquiries can be pro- _ 
perly begun, at the period I have fixed,— 
before I can exhibit the elaftic force of 
freedom rebotinding under the preflure of 
the moft abfolute government, I muft 
call your attentions to the genealogy of 
our feodal anceftors. 
They iffued from that northern hive of 
fierce warriors who over-ran all Europe at 
the ‘declewfion of the Roman empire; a 
race of men the moft extraordinary that 
ever marked or diftinguifhed the ftate of 
nature; 2 people who, in the abfence of 
every art and fcience, carried the feeds of 
future perfection “in their national genius 
and charaéteriftic; vilible even then in 
an unconquerable fortitude of mind, in 
an inherent idea of human equality, tem- 

+ Allodii were fuch as held of no feodal 
fuperior, celles gui ne recognoifjent fuperieur en 
feedclitic. 'Thete Allodial lands were all fur- 
Conqgueft, -and 
received back to be held by feodal tenure, a6 
appears by Doomtday Book. , 
Kk pered 
