the blessing of God, we are now delivered from all kinds Let us take care that they may never

of oppression.

return.

6.-Sir John St Aubin's Speech for repealing the Septennial Act.

MR SPEAKER,-I am aware it may be said, that frequent new parliaments will produce frequent new expenses; but I think quite the contrary: I am really of opinion, that it will be a proper remedy against the evils of bribery at elections, especially as you have provided so wholesome a law to co-operate upon these oc

casions.

Coun

Bribery at elections, whence did it arise? Not from country gentlemen, for they are sure of being chosen without it; it was, Sir, the invention of wicked and corrupt ministers, who have from time to time led weak princes into such destructive measures, that they did not dare to rely upon the natural representation of the people. Long parliaments, Sir, first introduced bribery, because they were worth purchasing at any rate. try gentlemen, who have only their private fortunes to rely upon, and have no mercenary ends to serve, are unable to oppose it, especially if at any time the public treasure shall be unfaithfully squandered away to corrupt their boroughs. Country gentlemen, indeed, may make some weak efforts, but as they generally prove unsuccessful, and the time of a fresh struggle is at so great a distance, they at last grow faint in the dispute, give up their country for lost, and retire in despair; despair naturally produces indolence, and that is the proper disposition for slavery.-Ministers of state understand this very well, and are therefore unwilling to awaken the nation out of its lethargy by frequent elections. They know that the spirit of liberty, like every other virtue of the mind, is to be kept alive only by constant action: that it is impossible to enslave this nation, while it is perpetually upon its guard.-Let country gentlemen then, by having frequent opportu

nities of exerting themselves, be kept warm and active in their contention for the public good: this will raise that zeal and spirit, which will at last get the better of those undue influences by which the officers of the crown, though unknown to the several boroughs, have been able to supplant country gentlemen of great characters and fortune, who live in their neighbourhood.-I do not say this upon idle speculation only: I live in a country where it is too well known, and I appeal to many gentlemen in the House, to more out of it, (and who are so for this very reason) for the truth of my assertion. Sir, it is a sore which has been long eating into the most vital part of our constitution, and I hope the time will come when you will probe it to the bottom. For if a minister should ever gain a corrupt familiarity with our boroughs; if he should keep a register of them in his closet, and, by sending down his treasury mandates, should procure a spurious representation of the people, the offspring of his corruption, who will be at all times ready to reconcile and justify the most contradictory measures of his administration, and even to vote every crude indigested dream of their patron into a law; if the maintenance of his power should become the sole object of their attention, and they should be guilty of the most violent breach of parliamentary trust, by giving the king a discretionary liberty of taxing the people without limitation or control; the last fatal compliment they can pay to the crown ;-if this should ever be the unhappy condition of this nation, the people indeed may complain; but the doors of that place, where their complaints should be heard, will for ever be shut against them.

Our disease, I fear, is of a complicated nature; and I think that this motion is wisely intended to remove the first and principal disorder. Give the people their ancient right of frequent new elections; that will restore the decayed authority of parliaments, and will put our constitution into a natural condition of working out her

own cure.

Sir, upon the whole, I am of opinion, that I cannot express a greater zeal for his Majesty, for the liberties

of the people, or the honour and dignity of this house, than by seconding the motion which the honourable gentleman has made you.

7.-Part of Sir Robert Walpole's Reply.

As to bribery and corruption, Sir, if it were possible to influence, by such base means, the majority of the electors of Great Britain to choose such men as would probably give up their liberties: if it were possible to influence, by such means, a majority of the members of this house to consent to the establishment of arbitrary power, I would readily allow, that the calculations made by the gentleman of the other side were just, and their inference true; but I am persuaded that neither of these is possible. As the members of this house generally are, and must always be, gentleman of fortune and figure in their country, is it possible to suppose, that any one of them could, by a pension, or a post, be influenced to consent to the overthrow of our constitution; by which the enjoyment, not only of what he got, but of what he before had, would be rendered altogether precarious? I will allow, Sir, that, with respect to bribery, the price must be higher or lower, generally in proportion to the virtue of the man who is to be bribed; but it must likewise be granted, that the humour he happens to be in at the time, the spirit he happens to be endowed with, adds a great deal to his virtue. When no encroachments are made upon the rights of the people, when the people do not think themselves in any danger, there may be many of the electors who, by a bribe of ten guineas, might be induced to vote for one candidate rather than another; but if the court were making any encroachments upon the rights of the people, a proper spirit would, without doubt, arise in the nation; and in such a case, I am persuaded, that none, or very few, even of such electors, could be induced to vote for a court canditate; no, not for ten times the sum.

There may, Sir, be some bribery and corruption in the nation; I am afraid there will always be some : but it is no proof of it, that strangers are sometimes chosen ;

for a gentleman may have so much natural influence over a borough in his neighbourhood, as to be able to prevail with them to choose any person he pleases to recommend; and if upon such recommendation they choose one or two of his friends, who are perhaps strangers to them, it is not from thence to be inferred, that the two strangers were chosen their representatives by the means of bribery and corruption.

To insinuate, Sir, that money may be issued from the public treasury for bribing elections, is really something very extraordinary, especially in those gentlemen who know how many checks are upon every shilling that can be issued from thence; and how regularly the money granted in one year for the public service of the nation, must always be accounted for the very next session, in this house, and likewise in the other, if they have a mind to call for any such account. And as to the gentlemen in offices, if they have any advantage over country gentlemen, in having something else to depend on besides their own private fortunes, they have likewise many disadvantages: they are obliged to live here at London with their families, by which they are put to a much greater expense than gentlemen of equal fortunes who live in the country: this lays them under a very great disadvantage, with respect to the supporting of their interest in the country. The country gentleman, by living among the electors, and purchasing the necessaries for his family from them, keeps up an acquaintance and correspondence with them, without putting himself to any extraordinary charge; whereas a gentleman who lives in London has no other way of keeping up an acquaintance or correspondence among his friends in the country, but by going down once or twice a-year, at a very extraordinary charge, and often without any other business: so that we may conclude, a gentleman in office cannot, even in seven years, save much for distributing in ready money, at the time of an election; and I really believe, if the fact were narrowly inquired into, it would appear, that the gentlemen in office are as little guilty of bribing their electors with ready money, as any other set of gentlemen in the kingdom.

That there are ferments often raising among the people without any just cause, is what I am surprised to hear controverted, since very late experience may convince us of the contrary. Do not we know what a ferment was raised in the nation towards the latter end of the late queen's reign? And it is well known what a fatal change in the affairs of this nation was introduced, or at least confirmed, by an election's coming on while the nation was in that ferment. Do not we know what a ferment was raised in the nation soon after his late Majesty's accession? And if an election had then been allowed to come on, while the nation was in that ferment, it might perhaps have had as fatal effects as the former; but, Sir, this was wisely provided against by the very law which is now wanted to be repealed.

As such ferments may hereafter often happen, I must think that frequent elections will always be dangerous; for which reason, as far as I can see at present, I shall, I believe, at all times, think it a very dangerous experiment to repeal the septennial bill.

8.—Mr Pulteney's Speech on the Motion for reducing the Army.

SIR,-We have heard a great deal about parliamentary armies, and about an army continued from year to year. I always have been, Sir, and always shall be, against a standing army of any kind. To me it is a terrible thing; whether under that of parliamentary or any other designation, a standing army is still a standing army, whatever name it be called by: they are a body of men distinct from the body of the people; they are governed by different laws; and blind obedience, and an entire submission to the orders of their commanding officer, is their only principle. The nations around us, Sir, are already enslaved, and have been enslaved by those very means: by means of their standing armies they have every one lost their liberties: it is indeed impossible that the liberties of the people can be preserved in any country where a numerous standing army is kept up. Shall we then take any of our measures