So was Rome destroyed by the disorders of continual elections, though those of Rome were sober disorders.  They had nothing but faction, bribery, bread, and stage-plays, to debauch them:  we have the inflammation of liquor superadded, a fury hotter than any of them.  There the contest was only between citizen and citizen:  here you have the contests of ambitious citizens of one side supported by the crown to oppose to the efforts (let it be so) of private and unsupported ambition on the other.  Yet Rome was destroyed by the frequency and charge of elections, and the monstrous expense of an unremitted courtship to the people.  I think, therefore, the independent candidate and elector may each be destroyed by it, the whole body of the community be an infinite sufferer, and a vicious ministry the only gainer.

Gentlemen, I know, feel the weight of this argument; they agree, that this would be the consequence of more frequent elections, if things were to continue as they are.  But they think the greatness and frequency of the evil would itself be, a remedy for it,—­that, sitting but for a short time, the member would not find it worth while to make such vast expenses, while the fear of their constituents will hold them the more effectually to their duty.

To this I answer, that experience is full against them.  This is no new thing; we have had triennial Parliaments; at no period of time were seats more eagerly contested.  The expenses of elections ran higher, taking the state of all charges, than they do now.  The expense of entertainments was such, that an act, equally, severe and ineffectual, was made against it; every monument of the time bears witness of the expense, and most of the acts against corruption in elections were then made; all the writers talked of it and lamented it.  Will any one think that a corporation will be contented with a bowl of punch or a piece of beef the less, because elections are every three, instead of every seven years?  Will they change their wine for ale, because they are to get more ale three years hence?  Don’t think it.  Will they make fewer demands for the advantages oL patronage in favors and offices, because their member is brought more under their power?  We have not only our own historical experience in England upon this subject, but we have the experience coexisting with us in Ireland, where, since their Parliament has been shortened, the expense of elections has been so far from being lowered, that it has been very near doubled.  Formerly they sat for the king’s life; the ordinary charge of a seat in Parliament was then fifteen hundred pounds.  They now sit eight years, four sessions; it is now twenty-five hundred pounds, and upwards.  The spirit of emulation has also been extremely increased, and all who are acquainted with the tone of that country have no doubt that the spirit is still growing, that new candidates will take the field, that the contests will be more violent, and the expenses of elections larger than ever.