248 
pered with a voluntary fubmiffion to the 
moft rigid fubordination: the trial by 
jury too was underftcod and revered b 
all the-nortlern inhabitants of Europe, 
when they firft appeared among the dege- 
-nerate nations that had loft it. Libert tys 
driven, from the :haunts of fcience and 
- civilization, feems to haye fled with this 
talifman to the defarts, and to have given 
it. to. barbarians to revenge her injuries, 
and to redeem her empire ; in marking the 
procefs. of the conftitution throuch t the 
furnace.of flavery, it muft never fe for- 
gotten, that fuch were our anceftors, 
When William had gained the vittery 
of Haftings, he marched towards Lendon 
with his vidlori ous Normans, and found 
(like other conquerors) an ealy paflage to. 
-the throne when the prince ts flain and his 
army aac Sue Englifh proffered 
him the peacea ofleflion of a kingdom 
awhich he was in 2 condition to have feted 
by force; 5 2 Fe ver poate to fee the brows 
of .a.vicgtor eacircled Sta a crown than 
witha helmet t, and wifhing rather to be 
governed by the fceptre chan by the ford: 
he was sharin infalled wid all the - 
folemnities of the Saxon coronation,and im- 
mediately afterwards annihilated ail thoie 
laws which thefe folemnities were inftituted 
to perpetuate: he eftablifned his own feodal 
fyftem. (the only one he: anderitood); he 
divided: all the jands of England’ into 
use: 
military fervi ACES and as few or none of 
the Enelifh } had any there in this general 
diftribution, their epee being forfeited 
from their adherence to Harold, and by 
ee rebellions, it is plain they 
ould have ng political conleqmende; fince 
none but the vaffals of the crown had 
feats in the feodal parliaments. 
Could William have been contented 
thus to have fhared. with his Norman 
barons the fpoils «f the conquered Eng- 
lith, and merely.to have transferred his 
feodal empire from Nomsiancy to Great 
Britain, the facred fun ef freedom had 
probably then fet upon this ifland, never 
to have arifen any. more; the Norman 
lords would have eftabli thed that arifto- 
cracy, which then qipreeus the whole 
i ecdel ‘world, and when afterwards, by. 
the natural progreffion of that fineular 
fyftem; when by the inevitable operation 
of efeheats? and forfeitures, the crown 
muft havé attracted: all th at property 
which’ cricinelly iffued from it; when 
the barons themfelves mu have dropped 
like falling itars into the centre of power, 
and ariftocrzcy been fwallowed up in mo- 
narchy; the people already trained to 
Afr. Exfeiné on the Houfe of Commins. 
fees, to be holden of himfelf by“ 
: . a 
fubjection, without rights, and witheut — 
even fimilar grievances to unite them, 
would have been an ealy prey to the pringe 
in the meridian of his. authority 5.2 al 
defpotiim, encircled witha ftanding army, 
would have feattered terror through. a 
nation of flaves. . 
_ But ee pEey for us, William's "views 
extended with his dominion: he forgot 
that his barons (who were sot bound by 
their tenures to leave their own country) 
had followed him rather as companions in 
enterprize, than as vaflals: -he. confided — 
in a itanding army of mercenaries; which — 
he recruited on the continent;  rivetted 
even on his own Normans, ae worl 
feodal {everities ; and before the endvof his 
reign, ~ the- Enclifa jaw the oppreffors 
themfelves among the number ot the op- 
prefied. ye. 
This plan, purfued ard aggravated by 
his defcendants, aflimilated. the hetero- 
geneous bodies of which the kingdom was 
compofed: Normans and Englith » barons 
and vaflais, were obliged to. unite in a 
common caufe. - Mr. de L’Olme, citizen 
of Geneva, by comparing the. rife of 
liberty in England with the fall of-it in 
France, has { clea arly and ingenioufly 
proved, that MagnaCharta was obtained 
os this ciel ies which the barons were 
inder of forming an union with the peo- 
le, that I-fhall venture to confider it as’ 
a tat demonfrated, -and fhal] proceed te 
an inquiry no leis curious and important, 
where he and other writers have left a 
greater field for originality ;.Imean the ~ 
rife of the Englith Houle of Commons, to 
its preient diftingt and: repreientative 
fate 
‘The fiatute of Magna Charta; fs ire 
evaded, oe io often folemnly re-efta- 
blifhed, difleminated (it muft be confelied) 
thofe great and leading maxims on which 
all the valuable privileges of civil geyern- 
ment depend; indeed the, twenty-ninth 
chapter contains every abfolute right for 
‘the fecnrity cf which men ‘enter ito the 
ae: mn itive iabliseas hoe of fociety > but pri- 
vileges thus gained, and only maintamed 
by the fward, cannot be called a conifti- 
tution; after bearing a fummer’s bleflem, 
‘they ray perifh as they grew, in the field 
of battle: of little confequence are even 
the moft folemn charters, confirmed by 
legiflative ratifications,. if they who aré 
the teas of them do not compofe part 
of that power, without whofe confent they 
cannot be repealed ; if they have no peace- 
able way of preventing their infringe- 
ment, nor any oppor tunity of f vindicating. 
their claims, till they have loft the bear 
o 
