man entered into bufinefs upon the new plan, when all things were in doubt and distraction, and the difpofition of parliament very uncertain. He was not driven from it, but left it; and left it with a powerful majority in favour of government. If things fhould fail afterwards, he was not to be blamed, who left them upon a much Itronger bafis than he found them; and that, for the prefent, in feeking his own repofe, he did not break in upon that of the public. On the contrary it was perhaps the only method, which could open the eyes of the people, and in due time conduct them to a knowledge of their real intereft. Whatever might have been the motives to this refignation, or the merits of it, nothing is more certain, than that the popular uneafinefs was no way diminished, becaufe the ends of the popular leaders were by no means anfwered, by it. Whatever expectations people might have formed, none of the party in oppofition were taken in. Ld. B. had refigned, but the plan of adminiftration was not changed. The perfon who held the office of the lord of the treafury, and the two fecretaries of ftate, were to be understood as compofing the miniftry, and to them the applications for bufinefs or favour were to be directed. No fort of reafonable objection could, indeed, be perfonally made to those who were placed at the helm. Mr. G. who fucceeded L. B. in the treafury, was a man of integrity, of understanding, and of experience, and had for many years laboured with diligence and ability to make himself matter of almost every department of public bufinefs. Lord H. with all the ornamental qualities of a courtier, was univerfally confidered as a very able man in office, and had held many high employments with a very high degree of reputation. Lord E-r-t, the other fecretary of ftate, a man of an illuftrions family and extenfive property, had not indeed been long in office, but ftood in every refpect unimpeached in his conduct. The other departments were filled in the fame unexceptionable manner. National prejudices have no place here, and if you quarrel with adminiftration, it is evident that you quarrel with it, because it is made upon conftitutional principles, and is not the work of an oligarchical cabal. All this was faid with great truth, but gave no kind of fatisfaction. Whence, faid the oppofite party, is derived the power of thefe new minifters? Not from their overbearing weight of property in the kingdom; not from their great parliamentary intereft, or their foperior parliamentary talents. In all these points, they are much exceeded by thofe who have been fo unworthily turned out from employment and favour. Is it from their having made themselves fo particularly agreeable at court, that, rather than be obliged to part with them, any inconvenience will be fubmitted to? Nobody was fo unacquainted with the world, as to entertain fuch a puerile imagination. What then was the end of their appointment? This clearly, and nothing elfe; that having no folid ground of power in themfelves, they might act as the paflive inftruments of that minifter, who, from confiderations of his own perfonal They were, probably, much miftaken in the idea they had formed of the principles which produced the late change, and the prefent miniftry. But whether the idea of the fubferviency of the miniftry to a concealed intereft was credited by all the party, as they pretended, or not, the effect was the fame; and it could not be otherwise. The two parties, quarrelling about their common object, power, had been by their feveral fituations obliged to adopt very different fyftems of politics. crown ought to obferve in the exercife of its right in nominating officers of state. The obfervation of this rule would, and, they were of opinion, nothing else could, in any degree, counterballance that immenfe power, which the crown has acquired by the gift of fuch an infinite number of profitable places. Nothing but the very popular ufe of the prerogative can be fufficient to reconcile the nation to the extent of it; and they will be highly diffatisfied, whenever they fee their affairs in the hands of any fet of men (though appointed according to the ftricteft letter of the law,) in whom they have not an entire confidence. When they fee administration fettled with an attention to this popular confidence, and with a condefcenfion to public opinion, they have a fecurity in which they can acquiefce, that no attempts will be made against the conftitution. Ministers, too, when they find that they are recommended to the royal favour, and, as it were, prefented to their places, by the esteem of the people, will be ftudious to acquire, and anxious to preferve, it. That thefe are the principles of whigs, and upon them the government has been conducted honourably for the crown, and advantageously for the people, ever fince the revolution; and things can never be at repose, until they fettle again upon the fame bafis. The friends of lord B. and of the miniftry which fucceeded, were for preferving to the crown the full exercife of a right, of which none difputed the validity, that of appointing its own fervants. Those of the oppofition did not deny this power in the crown, but they contended that the fpirit of the conftitution required, that the crown fhould be directed in the exercife of this public duty by public Whether thefe ideas, on which motives, and not by private liking feveral acted, and which fome freeand friendship. That great talents, ly avowed, be confiftent with the great and erminent fervices to the prefervation of any degree of menarpation, confidence amongst the no-chical authority in the commonbility, and influence amongst the wealth, the reader is left to judge. landed and mercantile interefts, It is, indeed, not altogether eafy to were the directions, which the determine whether the limitations + on the executive power ought or ought not to be extended further, by any other font of popular controul, than the laws themfelves, have carried them; for as, on one hand, a conftitution may be loft, whilft all its forms are preferved on the other, it seems repugnant to the genius of every ftable government to conduct itself by any other principles, than thofe which clear law has established, or to direct its actions by fo uncertain, variable, and capricious a standard, as that of popular opinion. What has been now faid, we think fufficient to afford the reader a very tolerable general idea of the principles real or pretended, of the of the feveral parties, which have for fome time unhappily divided the nation, and of thofe topics, which have been agitated with fo much heat and violence fince the conclufion of the peace. The public papers have given accounts (in what manner authenticated does not appear) of a very extraordinary negotiation, which commenced immediately on the death of lord Egre27th of Auguft. about, if poffible, a mont, in order to bring coalition between the leaders of the contending parties. This negotiation continued but for a very fhort time, and is faid to have broken off in as extraordinary a manner as it began. It has yet had no fare of visible effect; but as the difpofitions, which gave rife to it, muone time or another pro duce fomething confiderable, we referve the narration of this affair, until the public can acquire a more exact knowledge of the facts, and a more correct notion of the plan of politics which produced them, and until we have before our eyes the consequences which have arifen from them. Our business is not fpeculation, but narrative. We muit however remark, that this negotiation feems to have discovered to the world, what fome people before ftrongly fufpected, that the fubfifting administration did, from the beginning, by no means act under the influence, and, perhaps, not altogether in concurrence with the opinion of the great minifter, whose refignation had raised them to the direction of affairs. They appear indeed to ftand upon quite another bottom. What that bottom is, we are not furnished with the proper materials to determine; neither, perhaps, is it confiftent with the character of our undertaking to attempt any enquiry of this nature. At that time the fyftem of the miniftry was no way changed- On the contrary, its ftrength feemed to be confiderably increased by the acquifition of the D. of B. one of the most powerful men in England, from his property and the firmness of his character, who accepted the place of prefident of the council, which had been some time kept vacant. Lord Sandwich took the feals as one of the secretaries of ftate. And lord E. who was removed in the late change from the post-office to the admiralty, was a man of public fpirit to enthufiafm and was univerfally acknowledged one of the best informed of the whole body of the nobilitymo ceni da There appear to be at prefent three parties ftruggling for fuperiority in the ftate; thofe who fupport the administration, as it is now conflituted; thofe who wish the return of the E. of B. to the lead lead in public bufinefs; and those who ftill adhere to that fystem, which directed every thing during the latter part of the late reign. Thefe parties feem, for the prefent, to be fo equally ballanced, that each of them has force enough to distress, without being able to destroy, any one of the others, or to drive them into any terms of extreme fubmiffion. But the union of any two of them would, un doubtedly, be fufficient to over turn the third; and it is probable, that from fome fuch com bination a permanent fcheme of adminiftration will be formed, and the public tranquility at length fettled upon fome fure foundation. It is impoffible, that fo nice a balance of party power, depending, too, upon fo many nice circum ftances, can long continue in the fame fituation. It would be ab furd to imagine it. But what twot of the parties will engage in the confederacy, and in whofe favour! the ballance will ultimately ine cline, it may not be quite fo eafy to conjecture. CHA P. VIII. State of affairs on the continent. Death of Auguftus king of Poland. State of Poland. Election of a king of the Romans. Defigns of Auftria, Saxony's Pruffia, and Muscovy, King of Sardinia fettles the dispute concerning Placentia. Success of the Corficans «» in which the weak parts are al ways most injuriously treated in time of war, and leaft indemnified upon a peace. Flying from his country, and eaving his palace and his family in the poffeffion of his enemies, he had retired to Poland, where his authority, by the conftitution not very highly respected, was by his misfortunes rendered ftill more contemptible; and he there endured a continual feries of croffes and contradictions. He had the misfortune to find, that the king of Pruffia, who had feized by force of arms upon one part of his dominions, was by influence and policy far fuperior to him in, and had, in a manner, acquired the government of the other. His queen confort died in a fort of captivity, overcome with the alarms, the vexations, and the indignities which the fuffered. One of his fons, for whom he propofed an establishment in the duchy of Courland, was depofed almott as foon as he was elected. Another, whom he fet up as candidate for the bishoprick of Liege, was foiled in that purfuit; fo that broken down by almost every kind of misfortune, and having fuffered, in every thing, which could affect his intereft or his affections, as a fave reign, hufband, or father, it is no wonder that his conftitution, already impaired by age, at length gave way. He fell into a kind of. lethargic drowfinefs, and died on the 5th of October in the 67th year of his age, and about thirty years from his election to the crown of Poland. The death of this prince occafioned a vacancy in the throne of Poland; to fill which, agreeably to their defires and interefts, is one of the great objects of politics to moft of the confiderable powers in the north. At the fame time an election of a king of the Romans is on foot. Those two elective fovereignties not only occafion many mischiefs to those who live under them, but have frequently involved a great part of Europe in blood and confufion. Indeed, thefe exifting examples, prove beyond all fpeculation, the infinite fuperiority, in every refpect, of hereditary monarchy; finde insis evident, that the method of election constantly produces all thofe: inteftine divi Gons, to which, by its nature, it appears fo liable, and alfo fails in that, which is one of its principal objects, and which might be expected from it, the fecuring go vernment for many fucceffions in the hands of perfons of extraordinary merit and uncommon capacity. We find by experience, that thofe kingdoms, where the throne is an inheritance, have had, in their feries of fucceffion, full as many able princes to govern them, as either Poland or Germany, which are clective. It must be observed, however, that the latter of thefe countries has provided, either by defign or accident, much better against the inconveniencies of an election, than the former. The electors in Germany are very few, (in all but nine) and they are all great princes. So that the method of chufing an emperor has nothing tumultuous in it, and rather resembles a negotiation between fovereign ftates, than a popular election of a fupreme magistrate. There is another particular, in which the German constitution, in this refpect, greatly exceeds the Polifh; which is, that the majority of voices determines the election, whereas in Poland, where the number of electors is exceedingly great, unanimity is required in the choice. of a king, as in all their public deliberations of whatsoever nature. Befides, by a very prudent precaution, in Germany, the fucceffor, under the name of king of the Romans, is commonly chofen in the life of the reigning emperor. Every thing is prepared, and infinite confusion is thereby avoided. What evils might in the empire arife from a want of this precaution, may be judged, not only from the example of Poland, where they never would admit this ufage, but from the misfortunes which have fo recently happened проп |