law whatever, and that his perfon is facred and inviolable.

C H A P. VI.

The Boundaries which the Conftitution has fet to the Royal Prerogative.

I

N reading the foregoing enumeration of the powers with which the laws of England have intrufted the King, we are at a lofs to reconcile them with the idea of a Monarchy, which, we are told, is limited. The King not only unites in himself all the branches of the Executive power, he not only difpofes, without controul, of the whole military power in the State, but he is moreover, it feems, Mafter of the Law itself, fince he calls up, and difmiffes, at his will, the Legislative Bodies. We find him, therefore, at first fight, invefted with all the prerogatives. that ever were claimed by the most abfolute Monarchs; and we are at a lofs to find that liberty which the English feem fo confident they poffefs.

But the Representatives of the people still have, and that is faying enough,-they still have in their hands, now that the Conftitution is fully established, the fame powerful weapon which

has

has enabled their ancestors to establish it. It is still from their liberality alone that the King can obtain fubfidies; and in thefe days, when every thing is rated by pecuniary eftimation,—when gold is become the great moving fpring of affairs,-it may be fafely affirmed, that he who depends on the will of other men, with regard to fo important an article, is (whatever his power may be in other respects) in a state of real dependence.

This is the cafe of the King of England. He has, in that capacity, and without the grant of his people, scarcely any revenue. A few hereditary duties on the exportation of wool, which (fince the establishment of manufactures) are become tacitly extinguifhed; a branch of the excife, which, under Charles the Second, was annexed to the Crown as an indemnification for the military services it gave up, and which, under George the First, has been fixed to seven thousand pounds; a duty of two fhillings on every ton of wine im ported; the wrecks of ships of which the owners remain unknown; whales and fturgeons thrown on the coaft; fwans fwimming on public rivers; and a few other feudal relics, now compofe the whole appropriated revenue of the King, and are all that remain of the ancient inheritance of the Crown.

The

The King of England, therefore, has the prerogative of commanding armies, and equipping fleets, but without the concurrence of his Parliament he cannot maintain them. He can bestow places and employments,—but without his Parliament he cannot pay the falaries attending on them. He can declare war,-but without his Parliament it is impoffible for him to carry it on. In a word, the Royal Prerogative, deftitute as it is of the power of impofing taxes, is like a vast body, which cannot of itfelf accomplish its motions; or, if you please, it is like a fhip completely equipped, but from which the Parliament can at pleasure draw off the water, and leave it aground,-and alfo fet it afloat again, by granting fubfidies.

And indeed we fee, that, fince the establishment of this right of the Representatives of the People, to grant or refufe fubfidies to the Crown, their other privileges have been continually increasing. Though these Reprefentatives were not, in the beginning, admitted into Parliament but upon the most disadvantageous terms, yet they foon found means, by joining petitions to their money-bills, to have a fhare in framing thofe laws by which they were in future to be governed; and this method of proceeding, which at firft was only tolerated

by

by the King, they afterwards converted into an express right, by declaring, under Henry the Fourth, that they would not, thenceforward, come to any refolutions with regard to fubfidies, before the King had given a precise answer to their petitions.

In fubfequent times we fee the Commons conftantly fuccessful, by their exertions of the fame privilege, in their endeavours to lop off the defpotic powers which still made a part of the regal prerogative. Whenever abuses of power had taken place, which they were feriously determined to correct, they made griev ances and fupplies (to ufe the expreffion of Sir Thomas Wentworth) go hand in hand together; which always produced the redress of them. And in general, when a bill, in consequence of its being judged by the Commons effential to the public welfare, has been joined by them to a money bill, it has feldom failed to pass in that agreeable company*.

* In mentioning the forcible ufe which the Commons have at times made of their power of granting fubfidies, by joining provisions of a different nature to bills that had grants for their object, I only mean to fhew the great efficiency of that power, which was the fubject of this Chapter, without pretending to say any thing as to the propriety of the measure. The House of

Lords

BUT this force of the prerogative of the Commons, and the facility with which it may be exerted, however neceffary they may have been for the first establishment of the Conftitution, might prove too confiderable at prefent, when it is requifite only to fupport it. There might be the danger, that, if the Parliament should ever exert their privilege to its full extent, the Prince, reduced to defpair, might refort to fatal extremities; or that the Conftitution, which fubfifts only by virtue of its equilibrium, might in the end be fubverted.

Indeed, this is a cafe which the prudence of Parliament has forefeen. They have, in this refpect, impofed laws upon themselves; and, without touching the prerogative itself, they

Lords have even found it neceffary (which confirms what is faid here) to form, as it were, a confederacy among themselves, for the fecurity of their Legislative authority, against the unbounded use which the Commons might make of their power of taxation; and it has been made a standing order of their House, to reject any bill whatsoever to which a money-bill has been tacked.