a member, and in which I formed my principles, and the British Empire, has perhaps only contributed to facilitate my political inquiries. As the Mathematician, the better to discover the proportions he investigates, begins with freeing his equation from coefficients, or fuch other quantities as only perplex without properly conftituting it,-fo it may be advantageous to the inquirer after the causes that produce the equilibrium of a government, to have previously ftudied them, difengaged from the apparatus of fleets, armies, foreign trade, diftant and extenfive dominions,-in a word, from all thofe brilliant circumstances which fo greatly affect the external appearance of a powerful Society, but have no effential connection with the real principles of it. It is upon the paffions of Mankind, that is, upon causes which are unalterable, that the action of the various parts of a State depends. The machine may vary as to its dimensions, but its movement and acting springs still remain intrinsically the fame; and that time cannot be confidered as loft, which has been spent in feeing them act and move in a narrower circle. One other confideration I will fuggeft, which BВ 2 is, is, that the very circumftance of being a foreigner may of itfelf be attended, in this cafe, with a degree of advantage. The English themfelves (the obfervation cannot give them any offence) having their eyes open, as I may fay, upon their liberty, from their firft entrance into life, are perhaps too much familiarifed with its enjoyment, to inquire, with real concern, into its caufes. Having acquired practical notions of their government long before they have meditated on it, and these notions being flowly and gradually imbibed, they at length behold it without any high degree of fenfibility; and they feem to me, in this respect, to be like the reclufe inhabitant of a palace, who is perhaps in the worst fituation for attaining a complete idea of the whole, and never experienced the ftriking effect of its external structure and elevation; or, if you pleafe, like a Man who, having always had a beautiful and extensive scene before his eyes, continues for ever to view it with indifference. But a ftranger, beholding at once the various parts of a Conftitution difplayed before him, which, at the fame time that it carries liberty to its height, has guarded against inconveniences feemingly inevitable,-beholding in fhort thofe things carried into execution, which he he had ever regarded as more defirable than poffible, he is ftruck with a kind of admiration; and it is neceffary to be thus ftrongly affected by objects, to be enabled to reach the general principle which governs them. Not that I mean to infinuate that I have penetrated with more acutenefs into the Conftitution of England than others: my only defign, in the above obfervations, was to obviate an unfavourable, though natural, prepoffeffion; and if, either in treating of the caufes which originally produced the English liberty, or of thofe by which it continues to be maintained, my obfervations should be found new or fingular, I hope the English reader will not condemn them, but where they fhall be found inconfiftent with Hiftory, or with daily experience. Of readers in general I also requeft, that they will not judge of the principles I fhall lay down, but from their relation to thofe of human nature: a confideration which is almost the only one effential, and has been hitherto too much neglected by the Writers on the fubject of government, CHA P. I. Caufes of the liberty of the English Nation.-Reafons of the difference between the Government of England, and that of France.-In England, the great power of the Crown, under the Norman kings, created an union between the Nobility and the People, WHEN the Romans, attacked on all fides by the Barbarians, were reduced to the neceffity of defending the centre of their Empire, they abandoned Great Britain as well as feveral other of their diftant provinces. The ifland, thus left to itself, became a prey to the Nations inhabiting the fhores of the Baltic; who, having firft deftroyed the ancient inhabitants, and for a long time reciprocally annoyed each other, established several Sovereignties in the southern part of the Island, afterwards called England, which at length were united, under Egbert, into one Kingdom. The fucceffors of this Prince, denominated the Anglo-Saxon Princes, among whom Alfred the Great and Edward the Confeffor are particularly celebrated, reigned for about two hundred years: years: but, though our knowledge of the principal events of this early period of the English History is in fome degree exact, yet we have but vague and uncertain accounts of the nature of the Government which thofe Nations introduced. It appears to have had little more affinity with the present Conftitution, than the general relation, common indeed to all the Governments established by the Northern Nations,that of having a Ķing and a Body of Nobility; and the ancient Saxon Government is " left us in ftory (to use the expreffions of "fir William Temple on the fubject) but like "fo many antique, broken, or defaced pic"tures, which may ftill reprefent fomething " of the customs and fashions of thofe ages, though little of the true lines, proportions, "or refemblance *." It is at the æra of the Conqueft, that we are to look for the real foundation of the English Conftitution. From that period, fays Spelman, novus feclorum nafcitur ordo t. William of Nor mandy, * See his Introduction to the History of England. + See Spelman, Of Parliaments. It has been a favourite thefis with many Writers, to pretend that the Saxon Government was, at the time of the Conquest, by |