and other princes in the Empire; for the latter of these purposes are the jurisdictions of the Imperial cities and the Hanse towns.  For the latter of these ends are also the countries of the States (Pays d’Etats) and certain cities and orders in France.  These are all regulations with an object, and some of them with a very good object.  But how are the principles of any of these subdivisions applicable in the case before us?

Do they answer any purpose to the king?  The Principality of Wales was given by patent to Edward the Black Prince on the ground on which it has since stood.  Lord Coke sagaciously observes upon it, “That in the charter of creating the Black Prince Edward Prince of Wales there is a great mystery:  for less than an estate of inheritance so great a prince could not have, and an absolute estate of inheritance in so great a principality as Wales (this principality being so dear to him) he should not have; and therefore it was made sibi et heredibus suis regibus Angliae, that by his decease, or attaining to the crown, it might be extinguished in the crown.”

For the sake of this foolish mystery, of what a great prince could not have less and should not have so much, of a principality which was too dear to be given and too great to be kept,—­and for no other cause that ever I could find,—­this form and shadow of a principality, without any substance, has been maintained.  That you may judge in this instance (and it serves for the rest) of the difference between a great and a little economy, you will please to recollect, Sir, that Wales may be about the tenth part of England in size and population, and certainly not a hundredth part in opulence.  Twelve judges perform the whole of the business, both of the stationary and the itinerant justice of this kingdom; but for Wales there are eight judges.  There is in Wales an exchequer, as well as in all the duchies, according to the very best and most authentic absurdity of form.  There are in all of them a hundred more difficult trifles and laborious fooleries, which serve no other purpose than to keep alive corrupt hope and servile dependence.

These principalities are so far from contributing to the ease of the king, to his wealth, or his dignity, that they render both his supreme and his subordinate authority perfectly ridiculous.  It was but the other day, that that pert, factious fellow, the Duke of Lancaster, presumed to fly in the face of his liege lord, our gracious sovereign, and, associating with a parcel of lawyers as factious as himself, to the destruction of all law and order, and in committees leading directly to rebellion, presumed to go to law with the king.  The object is neither your business nor mine.  Which of the parties got the better I really forget.  I think it was (as it ought to be) the king.  The material point