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would not of themfelves be able to confer on him the leaft executive authority, must for ever remain mere showy unsubstantial advantages. Finding all the active powers in the State concentered in that very feat of power, which we suppose him inclined to attack, and there fecured by the moft formidable provifions, his influence must always evaporate in ineffectual words; and after having advanced himself, as we fuppofe, to the very foot of the Throne, finding no branch of independent power which he might appropriate to himself, and thus at laft give a reality to his political importance, he would foon fee it, however great it might have at first appeared, decline and die away.

God forbid, however, that I should mean that the People of England are fo fatally tied down to inaction, by the nature of their Government, that they cannot, in times of oppreffion, find means of appointing a Leader, No; I only meant to fay that the laws of England open no door to thofe accumulations of power, which have been the ruin of so many Republics; that they offer to the ambitious no poffible means of taking advantage of the inadvertence, or even the gratitude, of the People, to make themselves their Tyrants; and that the

public power, of which the King has been made the exclusive depositary, must remain unshaken in his hands, fo long as things continue to keep in their legal order; which, it may be observed, is a strong inducement to him conftantly to endeavour to maintain them in it (a).

(a) There are feveral events, in the English Hiftory. which put in a very ftrong light this idea of the stability which the power of the Crown gives to the State.

The first is the facility with which the great Duke of Marlborough, and his party at home, were removed from their feveral employments. Hannibal, in circumftances nearly fimilar, had continued the war, against the will of the Senate of Carthage: Cæfar had done the fame in Gaul; and when at last his commiffion was expressly required from him, he marched his army to Rome, and established a military defpotifm. But the Duke, though furrounded, as well as those Generals, by a victorious army, and by Allies in conjunctions with whom he had carried on fuch a fuccessful war, did not even hesitate to deliver up his commiffion. He knew that all his foldiers were infuperably prepoffeffed in favour of that Power against which he must have revolted: he knew that the fame prepoffeffions were deeply rooted in the minds of the whole Nation, and that every thing among them concurred to fupport that Power: he knew that the very nature of the claims he must have fet up, would inftantly have made all his Officers and Captains turn themselves against him, and, in fhort, that in an enterprize of this nature, the arm of the fea he had to repafs, was the smallest of the obftacles he would have to encounter.

The other event I fhall mention here, is that of the Revolution of 1689. If the long established power of the Crown had not beforehand prevented the people from

CHA P. II.

The Subject concluded.-The Executive power is more easily confined when it is ONE.

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NOTHER

great advantage, and

which one would not at firft expect, in this unity of the public power in England, -in this union, and, if I may fo express myfelf, in this coacervation, of all the branches of the Executive authority, is the greater facility it affords of reftraining it.

In thofe States where the execution of the laws is intrufted to feveral different hands, and to each with different titles and prerogatives, fuch divifion, and the changeableness of meafures which must be the confequence of it, conftantly hide the true caufe of the evils of the State: in the endless Auctua tion of things, no political principles have time to fettle among the People, and public

accuftoming themfelves to fix their eyes on fome particular Citizens, and in general had not prevented all Men in the State from attaining any too confiderable degree of power and greatnefs, the expulfion of James might have been followed by events fimilar to those which took place at Rome after the death of Cæfar.

misfortunes happen, without ever leaving behind them any useful leffon.

Sometimes military Tribunes, and at others, Confuls, bear an abfolute fway;-fometimes Patricians ufurp every thing, and at other times, those who are called Nobles (a); -fometimes the People are oppreffed by Decemvirs, and at others, by Dictators.

Tyranny, in fuch States, does not always beat down the fences that are fet around it; but it leaps over them. When men think it confined to one place, it ftarts up again in another; it mocks the efforts of the People not because it is invincible, but because it is unknown;-seized by the arm of a Hercules, it efcapes with the changes of a Proteus.

But the indivifibility of the Public power in England has conftantly kept the views and efforts of the People directed to one and the fame object; and the permanence of that Power

(a) The capacity of being admitted to all places of public truft, at last gained by the Plebeians, having rendered useless the old diftinction between them and the Patricians, a coalition was then effected between the great Plebeians, or Commoners, who got into thefe places, and the ancient Patricians: hence a new Clafs of Men arofe, who were called Nobiles and Nobilitas. These are the words by which Livy, after that period, conftantly diftinguishes thofe Men and families who were at the head of the State.

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has also given a permanence and a regularity to the precautions they have taken to reftrain it.

Conftantly turned towards that ancient fortrefs, the Royal power, they have made it, for feven centuries, the object of their fear; with a watchful jealousy they have considered all its parts they have obferved all its outlets-they have even pierced the earth to explore its fecret avenues, and fubterraneous works.

United in their views by the greatness of the danger, they regularly formed their attacks. They established their works, first at a distance; then brought them fucceffively nearer; and, in fhort, raised none but what ferved afterwards as a foundation or fupport to others.

After the great Charter was established, forty fucceffive confirmations ftrengthened it. The A&t called the Petition of Right, and that paffed in the fixteenth year of Charles the First, then followed: fome years after, the Habeas Corpus A&t was established; and the Bill of Rights made at length its appearance. In fine, whatever the circumftances may have been, they always had, in their efforts, that ineftimable advantage of knowing with certainty the general feat of the evils they had to defend themfelves againft; and each calamity, each