That his faithful Commons most humbly recommend, instead of the inconsiderate speculations of unexperienced men, that, on all occasions, resort should be had to the happy practice of Parliament, and to those solid maxims of government which have prevailed since the accession of his Majesty's illustrious family, as furnishing the only safe principles on which the crown and Parliament can proceed.

We think it the more necessary to be cautious on this head, as, in the last Parliament, the present ministers had thought proper to countenance, if not to suggest, an attack upon the most clear and undoubted rights and privileges of this House.*

Commons in the light of usurpations; and his Grace is of opinion, that, when the people are restored to what he conceives to be their rights, in electing the House of Commons, the other branches of the legislature ought to be restored to theirs. - Vide Remembrancer, Vol.

XVI.

* By an act of Parliament, the Directors of the East India Company are restrained from acceptance of bills drawn from India, beyond a certain amount, without the consent of the Commissioners of the Treasury. The late House of Commons, finding bills to an immense amount drawn upon that body by their servants abroad, and knowing their circumstances to be exceedingly doubtful, came to a resolution providently cautioning the Lords of the Treasury against the acceptance of these bills, until the House should otherwise direct. The Court Lords then took occasion to declare against the resolution as illegal, by the Commons undertaking to direct in the execution of a trust created by act of Parliament. The House, justly alarmed at this resolution, which went to the destruction of the whole of its superintending capacity, and particularly in matters relative to its own prov. ince of money, directed a committee to search the journals, and they found a regular series of precedents, commencing from the remotest of those records, and carried on to that day, by which it appeared that the House interfered, by an authoritative advice and admonition, upon every act of executive government without exception, and in many much stronger cases than that which the Lords thought proper to quarrel with.

Fearing, from these extraordinary admonitions, and from the new doctrines, which seem to have dictated several unusual expressions, that his Majesty has been abused by false representations of the late proceedings in Parliament, we think it our duty respectfully to inform his Majesty, that no attempt whatever has been made against his lawful prerogatives, or against the rights and privileges of the Peers, by the late House of Commons, in any of their addresses, votes, or resolutions; neither do we know of any proceeding by bill, in which it was proposed to abridge the extent of his royal prerogative: but, if such provision had existed in any bill, we protest, and we declare, against all speeches, acts, or addresses, from any persons whatsoever, which have a tendency to consider such bills, or the persons con cerned in them, as just objects of any kind of censure and punishment from the throne. Necessary reformations may hereafter require, as they have frequently done in former times, limitations and abridgments, and in some cases an entire extinction, of some branch of prerogative. If bills should be improper in the form in which they appear in the House where they originate, they are liable, by the wisdom of this Constitution, to be corrected, and even to be totally set aside, elsewhere. This is the known, the legal, and the safe remedy; but whatever, by the manifestation of the royal displeasure, tends to intimidate individual members from proposing, or this House from receiving, debating, and passing bills, tends to prevent even the beginning of every reformation in the state, and utterly destroys the deliberative capacity of Parliament. We therefore claim, demand, and insist upon it, as our undoubted right,

that no persons shall be deemed proper objects of animadversion by the crown, in any mode whatever, for the votes which they give or the propositions which they make in Parliament.

We humbly conceive, that besides its share of the legislative power, and its right of impeachment, that, by the law and usage of Parliament, this House lias other powers and capacities, which it is bound to maintain. This House is assured that our humble advice on the exercise of prerogative will be heard with the same attention with which it has ever been regarded, and that it will be followed by the same effects which it has ever produced, during the happy and glorious reigns of his Majesty's royal progenitors,

not doubting but that, in all those points, we shall be considered as a council of wisdom and weight to advise, and not merely as an accuser of competence to criminate. This House claims both capacities; and we trust that we shall be left to our free discretion which of them we shall employ as best calculated for his Majesty's and the national service. Whenever we shall see it expedient to offer our advice concerning his Majesty's servants, who are those of the public, we confidently hope that the personal favor of any minister, or any set of ministers, will not be more dear to his Majesty than the credit and character of a House of Commons. It is an experiment full of peril to put the representative wisdom and justice of his Majesty's people in the wrong; it is a crooked and desperate design, leading to mischief, the extent

"I observe, at the same time, that there is no charge or complaint suggested against my present ministers."- The King's Answer, 25th February, 1784, to the Address of the House of Commons. Vide Resolutions of the House of Commons, printed for Debrett, p. 31.

of which no human wisdom can foresee, to attempt to form a prerogative party in the nation, to be resorted to as occasion shall require, in derogation from the authority of the Commons of Great Britain in Parlia ment assembled; it is a contrivance full of danger, for ministers to set up the representative and constituent bodies of the Commons of this kingdom as two separate and distinct powers, formed to counterpoise each other, leaving the preference in the hands of secret advisers of the crown. In such a situation of things, these advisers, taking advantage of the differences which may accidentally arise or may purposely be fomented between them, will have it in their choice to resort to the one or the other, as may best suit the purposes of their sinister ambition. By exciting an emulation and contest between the representative and the constituent bodies, as parties contending for credit and influence at the throne, sacrifices will be made by both; and the whole can end in nothing else than the destruction of the dearest rights and liberties of the nation. If there must be another mode of conveying the collective sense of the people to the throne than that by the House of Commons, it ought to be fixed and defined, and its authority ought to be settled: it ought not to exist in so precarious and dependent a state as that ministers should have it in their power, at their own mere pleasure, to acknowledge it with respect or to reject it with scorn.

It is the undoubted prerogative of the crown to dissolve Parliament; but we beg leave to lay before his Majesty, that it is, of all the trusts vested in his Majesty, the most critical and delicate, and that in which this House has the most reason to require, not

only the good faith, but the favor of the crown. His Commons are not always upon a par with his ministers in an application to popular judgment; it is not in the power of the members of this House to go to their election at the moment the most favorable for them. It is in the power of the crown to choose a time for their dissolution whilst great and arduous matters of state and legislation are depending, which may be easily misunderstood, and which cannot be fully explained before that misunderstanding may prove fatal to the honor that belongs and to the consideration that is due to members of Parliament.

We

With his Majesty is the gift of all the rewards, the honors, distinctions, favors, and graces of the state; with his Majesty is the mitigation of all the rigors of the law and we rejoice to see the crown possessed of trusts calculated to obtain good-will, and charged with duties which are popular and pleasing. Our trusts are of a different kind. Our duties are harsh and invidious in their nature; and justice and safety is all we can expect in the exercise of them. are to offer salutary, which is not always pleasing counsel: we are to inquire and to accuse; and the objects of our inquiry and charge will be for the most part persons of wealth, power, and extensive connections: we are to make rigid laws for the preservation of revenue, which of necessity more or less confine some action or restrain some function which before was free: what is the most critical and invidious of all, the whole body of the public impositions originate from us, and the hand of the House of Commons is seen and felt in every burden that presses on the people. Whilst ultimately we are serving them, and in the first instance whilst we are serving