The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-07-10 00:00:00

THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.

The Monthly Law Magazine, in its number for July,
sustains its former character. Many popular subjects
are treated in a popular manner. We take the follow-
ing extract, almost at random, from the first article in
the magazine :

Amongst the effects which have resulted from this striking
change in our political system (the reform act) we may num-
ber our capacity to form a more just, because a more dispas-
sionate, estimate of the precise value of the revolution (of
1683), and of the principles and policy of the various parties
at that time, than we could otherwise have done It is this
which we propose to attempt; but, as the subject is far too
extensive to be embraced in a single paper, we shall, for the
present, confine our attention to an inquiry into the state in
which the revolution found our constitution. And, if we mis-
take not, we shall be enabled to show that the principles
which have been emphatically designated " the principles of
the resolution," and which the Whig writers have claimed as
the offspring of whig wisdom, were in truth asserted and cs•
tablished by the tor`• parliament of 1661: and further, that
it was those prileip.es which formed alike the basis and the
justification of the revolution itself.

The three grand principles which the revolution is said to
have established were—

1 The illegality of raising money for the use of the crown
without grant of parliament, or in ether manner than granted
by parliament.
2. The illegality of the power claimed by the King of sus-
pending laws, or the execution of laws.
3. Th.e illegality of a standing army, without consent of
parliament.
These principles are stated as the oasis of the revolution
in the memorable bill of rights; and these principles, with
others not less important, were the principles of the tory
party in the reign of Charles 11., and of the narliament which
represented the sentiments and adopted the policy of that
party. The first House of Commons elected after the resto-
ration was chiefly composed of men who had signalised them-
selves the most cpnspicuously by their loyalty during the
great rebellion. Such of the presbyterians as obtained seats
in it were too few and insignificant to obtain any consider-
able influence. From a house so constituted, and assembled
at such a period, we might reasonably have expected little
better than that spirit of servile loyalty which the prejudices
of Whig historians have imputed to it. We could scarcely
have wondered it it had displayed a disposition to view with
suspicion and alarm everything which tended to public liberty,
since it was under a pretence that the laws and freedom of
the country had been but a few years before subjected to the
arbitrary rule of a military despot; nor could we have won-
dered hail the reaction of opinion which attended the resto-
ration hurried them into a recognition of many of those ex-
travagant claims of prerogative which, when advanced by
Charles 1., had given some colour of justice to the violence
of his rebel subjects. Happily, however, for posterity, a bet-
ter, a wiser, a more patriotic spirit presided over their councils!
They did not forget that tbey were the subjects of a King—
but they also remembered that they were the representatives
ofa people, and bound as such to cherish every principle of po-
pish) r freedom, consistent with the maintenance of public order.
Throughout their long career we find them distinguished by
an ardent zeal for the ancient constitution of the country;
resisting, on the one hand, the licentious principles of dis-
guised republicans, and, on the other, the equally pernicious.
designs of the court faction. Whenever circumstances im-
pelled them along the path of innovation, they adhered as
closely as they were able to the forms and spirit of the ac-
customed laws. They laid down no abstract principle which,
in its practical application or remote consequences, might
prove the fruitful source of oppression and wrong. They
resorted to no wild theory, hastily derived from scanty and.
uncertain data—the offspring of brilliant imaginations, fitted
to deal rather with "the airy nothings" of " poetic vision,"
than with the stubborn truths, the stern realities,, of actual
existence. Seduced by no rash speculation—instructed by
history, and that philosophy of which history is the material
—they sought in the simple and intelligible principles of our.
constitution, for the sources and safeguards of national free-
dom. Abiding by those principles, they gave to each of them
such developement and predominance as the exigencies of
the times demanded; opposing that which we may denomi:
nate the democratic principle to the tendency. occasionally
displayed towards arbitrary power, and restraining, by .the
monarchical principle, an intimation which at times mani-
fested itself towards license and anarchy.
Of necessity, the first acts were restorative. They restored
to the crown the exercise of those functions, for the exercise
of which its existence was alone desirable—without which it
would have been no better than a splendid and idle mockery
--thenire They recognised it as a portion of
7tiltlkeil.rightful head 6 of the military force,
and, on behalf of themselves and their posterity, they' so-
lemnly repudiated all those claims to independent authority
legislature, as
which had been asserted and exercised by the Long Parlia-
ment of 16-10. Up to this point we must admit that they
displayed a reasonable anxiety to preserve to the throne its
lawful and constitutional prerogatives. But the infatuated
King, who had learnt from his exile nothing but the creed •
and insincerity of jesuitism, was not content with these. He
desired to emancipate himself from those restraints which
the very existence of a parliament imposed, as well on his
luxury and dissipation, as on his ambition and love of power.
Although the precise terms of his connection with France
were known only to a few, the fact of such a connection was
universally suspected, and the secrecy in' which its nature
was involved, served only to induce a surmise that it was
both disgraceful to himself and degrading to his country.
With all. their zeal for monarchy, the commons could feel
no confidence iu their Sovereign; and to the urgent neces-
sity that existed for protecting by powerful barriers those
rights which they knew he was prepared to invade, roust be
ascribed the frequent conflicts in which they were involved
with the crown, and which ending invariably in favour of
popular freedom, have exercised no inconsiderable influence
on the modern policy, not only of England, but of every
civilised nation in the world.
I. At what period arose the important privilege of origin-
ating supplies which our House of Commons has so long
exercised, antiquaries are nut agreed. It was distinctly
claimed and enforced by the parliament of 1640, before the
breaking out of the great rebellion. Since then it has only
been once practically denied, and that on an occasion that •
will come again under our notice.'
l'he parliament of 1661
seems to have been fully sensible of its importance. It was
their task to give it increased action; to extend it in such a
way as that it might beeome still more efficient as a check
upon the progress of despotic and unconstitutional power.
Since the right of originating supplies was already admitted
to reside in the commons, it only remained fur them to secure
to themselves the sole rightof prescribing theirexact amount.
In 1671, the lords having amended a roonev-bill by diminish-
ing the duty upon sugar, the commons resolved, "That in ad
aids given to the King y the commons, the rate or tax ought
not to be altered by the lords." The propriety of this vote
cannot be questioned, although undoubtedly it was a daring
innovation. We can at once see the importance of the prin-
ciple established by this resolution. Contrast this conduct
with that of the factious parliament of 1640—with the vote
which denounced a respectful message from the lords, re-
questing the commons to proceed to consider the subject of
a supply, as a breach of privilege, and we shall immediately
discover how dissimilar were their views, and the principles
by which the two parliaments were guided. The second
grand principle established by the taiyconimoni:of 1661 wars
that of appropriating the supplies, or determining the specific
object to which the grants of the parliament should be appli-
cable. Anciently the details of the public expenditure were
wholly confided to the discretion of the King and his advis-
ers; and although it was usual for the preamble of the money
bills to designate some particular purpose for which they
were required, still they contained nothing positively re-
stricting the application of the grant to that purpose. In
1665, however, this practice was departed from, and in an
act for raising a supply in aid of a war with the Dutch a
clause was inserted by the commons, requiring such supply
to be appropriated solely to that purpose. This clause the
courtiers considered to be something more than an insult to
the Sovereign. They conceived that it deprived him of one
branch of his prerogative, and awarded to the House of Com-
mons a degree of authority entirely inconsistent with the
monarchical institutions of fhe country. Clarendon de-
nounced it in the most vehement terms, and some of his
colleagues went so far as to say that it was equivalent to the
substitution of a republic for the ancient monarchy of Eng-
laud. But Lord Ashley, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, and the Astyanax of whig,-
gism, went even beyond the rest in exaggerating the ill effects
which would result to the King's authority should this ini-
quitous proceeding pass into a precedent. The King, how-
ever. having been persuaded that less difficulty would be
found in raising the money should this approaching clause
be retained, would not suffer any opposition to be offered to
it in either house; so that the commons succeeded in their
views without encountering even the shadow of a contest.
With few exceptions, the precedent then furnished hiss since
been followed. Nothing shows more plainly the great influ-
ence this concession was calculated to confer upon the House
of Commons than the fact that Cromwell would never suffer
the insertion of any clauses of appropriation in the money
bills passed during the protectorate, He had seen, its the
case of the unfortunate Charles the First, that the necessary
tendency of such a system was, to circumscribe the authority'
of the executive government. Among the advantages which
this principle has produced there is one that especially invites
our attention: it has, in the majority of instances, reconciled
the liberality of parliament with the public safety. It has
diminished the number of cases in which it might he expedient
to stop the supplies ; no longer, to prevent a threatened in--
crease of the army, need we consign our navy to destruction,
or send 'a gang of howling officials' from the treasury in
Downing-street to supplicate the charity of the triumvirate
at Somerset House.

(To be continued.)

GENERAL ILLUMINATION.—Matthews, in one of his enter-
tainments, used to tell a story of an innkeeper who never al-
lowed a guest a candle unless he ordered a pint of wine ;
whereupon the guest contends, upon the reciprocity system,
for a fre;sh light for every half: bottle; and, clually, drinks
himself in!.6 a general

*pipping EnttMyna.