land, not only by their common danger from France, but by no obscure resemblance of national character, by the strong sympathies of religion and liberty, by the remembrance of the glory of England founded on her aid to Holland,' (p. 308,) and by many other circumstances which conciliated the mutual esteem of the two nations. But all these considerations of ancient friendshipthe obligations of treaties-national interest, and European policy, were alike disregarded; the countenance of France was necessary to the success of the meditated overthrow of our own institutions, and our natural ally was sacrificed to our natural enemy. That overthrow of our domestic institutions was the first and the greatest concern-foreign affairs were thought of only as subsidiary to that more vital object. In a time of profound peace, of internal prosperity, with a people cognizant of their rights, and substantially attached to their constitution, it was clear that the mere violence of arbitrary assumption could not have been safely tried. With consummate skill, therefore, it was determined to proceed, not by assault, but by siege-sap, and mine-regular advances, parallels, and covered ways; in short, as Sir James Mackintosh observes, 'to use the forms of law, to overturn all law.' The first great obstacle was in the two Houses of Parliament, which in their old composition had been proved to be effective, and (with all their errors) incorruptible guardians of the liberties of England; from them, and particularly from the House of Commons in its unmutilated state, the innovating cabinet had everything to dread. Both houses were in an especial manner attached to the Church, and in an angry dissolution of a House of Commons which the ministry could not seduce or intimidate, Sir James Mackintosh detects the determination formed (though not yet avowed) to overthrow the Church "The dissolution of parliament announced a final breach between the Crown and the Church.'-p. 182. But to dissolve one refractory House of Commons was not enough-they must secure the future composition of that body in their own principles. For this purpose, and in order to influence all future elections, 'Commissioners were appointed to be the regulators of Corporations, with full power to remove and appoint freemen and corporate officers at their discretion. Duncombe (and another) regulated the corporation of London'-(not Hertford)- from which they removed 1500 freemen.'-p. 187. Indeed, the Freemen of all the towns, from their numbers, independence, and their general attachment to the Established Church, were peculiarly obnoxious to the ministers, whose measures great, that some highly respectable individuals were deiuded into a support of the ministerial projects: amongst them Sir James Mackintosh regrets to find the name of Mr. Locke, and, though he cannot excuse the error, he endeavours to explain and attenuate it • Compassion, friendship, Iberality, and toleration led him to support a system of which the success would have undone his country, and afforded a remarkable proof that, in the complicated combinations of political morality, a virtue misplaced may produce as much immediate mischief as a vice.-p. 171. With great earnestness we request the attention of Mr. Professor Sedgwick to this passage, and we beg of him to consider that the object of this severe but just censure was Mr. Locke, and the writer Sir James Mackintosh! Against the combined efforts of the king and the ministry, enforced by illegal Commissions and packed Committees of the Privy Council, and supported by hosts of Papists and Protestant Dissenters, the mild but firm opposition of a few collegiate recluses was triumphant: and it should never be forgotten that the liberties of England were, on this occasion, fought for and rescued in the halls and chapels of Oxford and of Cambridge. Exasperated at this unexpected defeat, from bodies whose general temper had promised no resistance, and who had no power but the moral inHluences of reason and conscience, the Court now flew at higher game. The Bishops of England had been long reviled for their supposed subservience to the Crown; and the ministers hopedand many even of those who respected their persons and their office, feared that their reluctance to meddle in politics, and, above all, to do anything that could savour either of faction or intolerance, might induce them, for peace sake, to submit to measures introduced under the plausible professions of Christian charity and universal toleration. The bishops, however, felt that there were duties higher than even toleration or loyalty-those which they owed to God and to the Church; all the violence of James and his ministers was baffled and defeated by their meek but insurmountable resistance-and the spirit of true constitutional freedom, first awakened in the seminaries of education, was fostered and fanned, by the ministers of religion, into a blaze, pure and bright, that illumined the nation, and served as a beacon of safety to the almost sinking liberties of England. Here Sir James Mackintosh closes his history, and here we close our extracts from the important, and, if duly considered, invaluable lesson which he has given us. We have more than once expressed our doubts, whether nations, any more than individuals, are made wise by experience, in cases where passion and interest are are concerned; but if the example of the reign of James II. be lost upon us—if we are obstinately blind to the extraordinary coincidence between the events of those days and of our own-if we do not see that the UNIVERSITIES and the CHURCH are now, as they were then, the sacred arks of our civil and religious covenants— and if we do not tremble for those holy things when we see their shrines marked out for mutilation and plunder-then, indeed, we shall abjure all reliance on the utility of history, and shall agree that Sir James Mackintosh might just as well have republished an old almanac ! * But while the analogy between those times and ours is thus striking, it is impossible not to see that our danger is greater. The designs of James's ministers tended immediately to the arbitrary authority of the Crown-a result odious in itself, and which, when brought into full view, united against him and them the great body of the nation, including, at last, even those sectaries (the papists excepted) who had been for a time deluded by the insidious and hypocritical measures of the administration. The Corporations, though mutilated, were not destroyed; and James's ministry had failed to obtain a subservient parliament. In our case, that which Sunderland and Jeffreys had attempted in vain-namely, the transfer, by due form of law, of the main power of the state into the hands of the Dissenters has been substantially operated by the Reform Bill, which has given the sectaries of all classes a predominance in the House of Commons, of which every week, every day, brings additional evidence. The People, too, who saw with so much terror the attempts of James to alter the balance of the Constitution in favour of the Crown, now see with pleasure, at least with complacency, an alteration equally unconstitutional, but in their own favour. Mankind are slow to learn the prudent virtue of self-denial; and although they have seen, in all ages and countries, that an unbalanced democracy has never failed to produce an unlimited despotism, they always expect that their own case is to be an exception to the general rule, and they cannot foresee any danger in throwing the whole power of the state into the hands of the People, for whose use and benefit all power is conferred.' They rely on their own good sense-they talk of the advanced state of the human intellect-of the lights of the age-and they forget that men, in the nineteenth century, have the same prejudices and passions, follies and vices, as those of the seventeenth-with less, probably, of those moral principles which tend to abate presumption-to * Mr. Cobbett, who, whatever else may be thought of him, will be admitted to have strong common sense- Rusticus abnormis sapiens crassáque Minerva'—said in the debate on Mr. Rice's Cambridge petition:- The King's Ministers are now doing what James II, was dethroned for attempting to do.'-Debate, March 25, 1834. restrain restrain ambition-to limit extravagance-and, in short, to regulate and discipline the public mind to its social duties. A corollary from this position of affairs is, that the executive and legislative parts of our constitutional machine have changed places-parliament used to be a check on the crown-the crown is now hardly a check on the parliament-the latter is become the real executive. It, directly or by its committees, does all the business of the state, or at least all that is done of the business of the state. There are no longer any bounds to its attributes and activity. It cannot, indeed, be said to show much either of diligence or talents in those matters which used to be considered the first great duties of the House of Commons-but it exhibits a wonderful appetite for everything else -and particularly for all those little or extraneous matters, which used to belong-from their nature, to the especial discretion of the crown or to the jurisdiction of the tribunals-or, from their personality and minuteness, to the public offices, or even to police magistrates. These are all evoked-generally by appeal, but sometimes as original causes-before the House of Commons, which is every hour engrossing, more and more, all the details of the executive administration. This, in a constitutional point of view, is sufficiently alarming, as portending-what happened in France, in the Constituent Assembly and the Convention, and caused all the errors and crimes of both-the absorption of the whole power of the state into the hands of one body. But there is a small though not unimportant circumstance which completes the parallel between the French legislative assemblies and our reformed House of Commons, and is, in our opinion, highly dangerous and unconstitutional, both in practice and as a precedent. Before the accession of the present ministers, when the House sat, all committees were, ipso facto, adjourned, and with good reason;-for the attendance of members on the business of the House is their first and paramount duty, to which attendance in committees is only subordinate and ancillary. But now it seems to have become the practice-by what law, or usage, or reason, we cannot guess-for the House and its twenty committees to go on sitting at the same time. At present, we believe, this only occurs during the morning sittings of the House-but it is of the principle which we complain. The men of business and authority are naturally named on committees, by every party which wishes for a fair discussion and decision-we have heard that Sir Robert Peel was at one time named on above a dozen simultaneous committees and we believe it often happens that the majority of attending members are on some committee. One or other of two things must then happen-either that the business of the committee must be left to inferior or perhaps interested persons, and a risk incurred of injustice, both public and private, or-as is, we believe, generally the case-the sittings of the House itself abandoned to the persons the least deserving public confidence and attention. Yet, as these debates in the House are reported, these third or fourth rate orators and statesmen obtain an opportunity of sending forth into the country-uncontradicted, unrefuted, and unexplained-the most crude fancies and the most mischievous doctrines. The practical absurdity and unconstitutionality of this course was, on a late occasion, accidentally exhibited-the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished to bring on the Poor Laws Amendment Bill on some particular night-members who had various notices and measures on the order-book refused to give way-'then,' says the Noble Lord, I must go on with the Poor Laws Bills at the morning sittings'-but Mr. Goulburn stopped that scheme by asking, 'Do you mean to discuss the Poor Laws in the absence of the most intelligent members of the House who are sitting on the committees; or, do you mean to abandon the committees to that class of members, if such there be, who take no interest in the Poor Laws?' Mr. Goulburn's observation was successful on this particular occasion-but the same objection might be made every day, when matters as important as even the Poor Laws are brought into constant discussion. Very important debates on the Corn Laws-the Tea Trade-the question of Tithes-and that subject which is more particularly the object of our present solicitude--the attack upon the Church and the Universities-were carried on in these morning sittings. On notice from Mr. Spring Rice that he meant to present a petition on this latter subject from some members of the University of Cambridge—Mr. Goulburn, Sir H. Inglis, Sir Robert Peel, and no doubt all other leading members, made it their business to attend the debate, which lasted for three mornings, and which was, in all its bearings, one of the most, if not the very most, important of the whole session-but what, in the meantime, became of the innumerable public and private interests which were afloat in the committees upstairs? On the other hand, twenty debates on the same subject have arisen without notice, and the friends of the Church have had, on these numerous occasions, no opportunity of rebutting and refuting accumulated misstatements and reiterated calunnies. The practical mischief and injustice of all this is obvious; but the ultimate effects of the principle and precedent are much more alarming, and if followed up as they seem but too likely to be |