41.  Among the circumstances of danger from that piece, and from its precedent, it is observable that this is the first petition (if I remember right) coming from a club or association, signed by individuals, denoting neither local residence nor corporate capacity.  This mode of petition, not being strictly illegal or informal, though in its spirit in the highest degree mischievous, may and will lead to other things of that nature, tending to bring these clubs and associations to the French model, and to make them in the end answer French purposes:  I mean, that, without legal names, these clubs will be led to assume political capacities; that they may debate the forms of Constitution; and that from their meetings they may insolently dictate their will to the regular authorities of the kingdom, in the manner in which the Jacobin clubs issue their mandates to the National Assembly or the National Convention.  The audacious remonstrance, I observe, is signed by all of that association (the Friends of the People) who are not in Parliament, and it was supported most strenuously by all the associators who are members, with Mr. Fox at their head.  He and they contended for referring this libel to a committee.  Upon the question of that reference they grounded all their debate for a change in the constitution of Parliament.  The pretended petition is, in fact, a regular charge or impeachment of the House of Commons, digested into a number of articles.  This plan of reform is not a criminal impeachment, but a matter of prudence, to be submitted to the public wisdom, which must be as well apprised of the facts as petitioners can be.  But those accusers of the House of Commons have proceeded upon the principles of a criminal process, and have had the effrontery to offer proof on each article.

42.  This charge the party of Mr. Fox maintained article by article, beginning with the first,—­namely, the interference of peers at elections, and their nominating in effect several of the members of the House of Commons.  In the printed list of grievances which they made out on the occasion, and in support of their charge, is found the borough for which, under Lord Fitzwilliam’s influence, I now sit.  By this remonstrance, and its object, they hope to defeat the operation of property in elections, and in reality to dissolve the connection and communication of interests which makes the Houses of Parliament a mutual support to each other.  Mr. Fox and the Friends of the People are not so ignorant as not to know that peers do not interfere in elections as peers, but as men of property; they well know that the House of Lords is by itself the feeblest part of the Constitution; they know that the House of Lords is supported only by its connections with the crown and with the House of Commons, and that without this double connection the Lords could not exist a single year.  They know that all these parts of our Constitution, whilst they are balanced as opposing interests, are also