The National Register.
London, England, 1809-08-27 00:00:00

THE

NATIONAL REGIS

No. 87.

POLITICAL DISQUISITION.

a lIIMBER EIUNTY-FIVE.

TO WILLIAM COBBETT.

Diruit, edVcat, mutat quadrate rotundis.

sl2,—ln my last Letter.l promised, if leisure permitted,
to examine the effects likely to be produced by the plans
that have been proposed by the Reformers of the present
day—viz. To address his MAJErry not to direct writs fur
Members of Parliament to what are called Rotten Bo-
roughs: and 2dly, To exclude all placemen and pensioners
from the .House of Commons. ih„.;
With regard to the first proposition, I shall • have but
little to say, because no man of understanding, or even of
.
common sense has ventured to assert, that the Kixo has
the power of doing what they ask. It is no answer.to say
that you Sir, or MajorCanTwniunr, have suggested such a
measure. Whatever the Major may be you are certainly
capable of advising, or actively promoting any meaSure.
that may reduce your Sovereign to the dreadful alternative
of forfeiting the affection of his people, or of haz3rding
the safety of his crown. Crush the wretch, is quite a; much
the motto of the BURDETTITER (of whom you are only
the tool and the dtipe) as it was of the blasphemous illu-
minati of the Continent. •We shall see if infatua-
tion, leading to a similar conduct, does not bring some of
you to a similar end. But to return—the Kt so has no.,
power to remedy any abuses he may be taught, or, per-
suadetl, to believe, exist in the other branches of the Sove-
reign Legislature, of which he is only one of the consti-
tnent parts. Sz:ch an idea would soon put an end to the
Constitution, by destroying the free agency of the other
parts. A power of controui, such as this proposition sup-
poses would reveler the very exercise of the power of the
House of Commons, precarious and impracticable. When-
ever the law expresses distrust of abuse of power, it always
vests a superior coercive influence in some other hand to
correct it; but this destroys the very idea of sovereignty.
Now, are you and the Reformers so fond, so attached to
the scheme of altering our
.representative system, that
sooner than let it alone, you would maintain a right in the
KING to intermeddle with the construction of the house of
Commons; and you base no .alternative, but either of do-
ing this, or of admitting that your designs in addressing
the KING for this purpose are base and insidions, if not ac-
tual!y treasonable.

The argument of Bt. A CRSTON r upon this point, which he
had stated hypothetically for the purpose of illustration
only, cannot be too forcibly, or too often impressed. He
says (Vol. 1. B. i. c. if (for example) the two
Rouses of Parliament, or. either of them, had avowedly a
right to animadvert- on the Kind, or each other; or, if the
iCtsd had a right to arnendwert on either of the Houses,
that branch of the Legislature, so snbit'ct to animaiver•
lion, would instantly cease to be part of the supreme power,
the halaucc of the Coneitotion wol:lit be ovegurned, and
110-4Vv. LXXYriI,

eur hum eromititution, anb Eanno.

SU NDAY, AUGUST 27, 1809.

that branch or branches, in wh
would be completely sovereign,
therefore, is, that neither the K
liament (collectively taken) is