Against the being of Parliament, I am satisfied, no designs have ever been entertained since the revolution.  Every one must perceive, that it is strongly the interest of the court, to have some second cause interposed between the ministers and the people.  The gentlemen of the House of Commons have an interest equally strong in sustaining the part of that intermediate cause.  However they may hire out the usufruct of their voices, they never will part with the fee and inheritance.  Accordingly those who have been of the most known devotion to the will and pleasure of a court have, at the same time, been most forward in asserting a high authority in the House of Commons.  When they knew who were to use that authority, and how it was to be employed, they thought it never could be carried too far.  It must be always the wish of an unconstitutional statesman, that a House of Commons, who are entirely dependent upon him, should have every right of the people entirely dependent upon their pleasure.  It was soon discovered, that the forms of a free, and the ends of an arbitrary government, were things not altogether incompatible.

The power of the crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength, and far less odium, under the name of Influence.  An influence, which operated without noise and without violence; an influence, which converted the very antagonist into the instrument of power; which contained in itself a perpetual principle of growth and renovation; and which the distresses and the prosperity of the country equally tended to augment, was an admirable substitute for a prerogative, that, being only the offspring of antiquated prejudices, had moulded in its original stamina irresistible principles of decay and dissolution.  The ignorance of the people is a bottom but for a temporary system; the interest of active men in the state is a foundation perpetual and infallible.  However, some circumstances, arising, it must be confessed, in a great degree from accident, prevented the effects of this influence for a long time from breaking out in a manner capable of exciting any serious apprehensions.  Although government was strong and flourished exceedingly, the court had drawn far less advantage than one would imagine from this great source of power.

At the revolution, the crown, deprived, for the ends of the revolution itself, of many prerogatives, was found too weak to struggle against all the difficulties which pressed so new and unsettled a government.  The court was obliged therefore to delegate a part of its powers to men of such interest as could support, and of such fidelity as would adhere to, its establishment.  Such men were able to draw in a greater number to a concurrence in the common defence.  This connection, necessary at first, continued long after convenient; and properly conducted might indeed, in all situations, be an useful instrument of government.  At the