attempt to maintain it, who is acquainted with our hiftory; has confulted the public records; or read the journals of parliament.

Q. 2. Upon the fame principles, and by the fame establishment, has the king a right to chufe his minifters, or fuch perfons as he thinks proper, and as he can place a confidence in, for carrying on the business of government?

Anf. By the fame conftitution, but not upon the fame principles, (if by that is meant that the powers ftand precifely on the fame foot, and are alike in all refpects) the king has a right to name and appoint his minifters, or fuch persons as he, being well and freely advifed by the fervants of the crown, thinks proper, and as he can place a confidence in, for carrying on the bufinefs of government. But befides the influence of fuch a conftitutional advice in the choice of minifters, there is in this country a power, as indifputable as that of the king, to name them, and of fufficient efficacy, to controul the choice of the crown, and to remove from the king's prefence and councils for ever minifters not approved of, even without proceeding fo far as to condemn or punish them by a judicial trial. That great power has been often, and may at any time be put into motion by the voice of the people; of whofe unalterable rites it is one to give and to enforce their inftructions to the reprefentatives they choose and may change.

Q. 3. Is not the parliament ftiled, and understood to be the grand council of the nation, a body who are confidered as the reprefentatives of the whole people: from whom it is expected, the king fhall receive advice; whofe duty and interest it is that he should do it, whofe power is able to controul them, as they fhall approve, or difapprove his actions, by granting, or witholding from him the effential means of acting-the fupplies?

Anf.

Anf. The parliament is ftiled, and understood to be the GREAT COUNCIL of the nation; a body which is confidered as the reprefentatives of the whole people, from whom it is expected the king fhould receive advice. It is therefore no lefs expected that their advice, not their approbation, fhould on fome occafions be asked. A British parliament will not now, more than in former days, think itself tied up from giving their advice, though it fhould not be afked. Such advice has been afked by fome of the best kings England ever had; and it has been given with authority and effect, when it was not asked to fome of the worst kings England ever faw; and in nothing more frequently than in the affairs of peace, war, and alliances made or declined to be made by the crown.-I know not how it can be the duty of the parliament (if to it the first whofe in the query not very grammatically relates) that the king fhould receive their advice, in any other refpect than that it is their duty, on every proper occafion, to give advice to the crown, when it is not as well as when it is afked. But I am fure it is the privilege and the right of parliament to advise the crown. And I agree it is their intereft (as I alfo think it is the king's, which is indeed infeparable from their's) that the crown fhould not only receive but afk the advice of parliament, in matters of the higheft importance, and of fingular difficulty. If there was no other reafon for the crown's receiving or asking the advice of parliament, it certainly is a very forceable one, that the power of the parliament is able to controul the crown, by giving or with-holding from it fupplies, which are the necessary means of acting, as they approve, or difapprove the meafures to which the king is advised by his minifters, who are answerable to their country for EVERY act of the crown.

Q. 4. By the nature of our conftitution, can the king learn the fenfe of his people? ought he to feek it in any other manner than from his parliament, from that body who reprefent the people?

Ans. By the nature of our conftitution, the king learns the prefumed fenfe of the people from the parliament. It is in that way he ought to feek it, and it is perhaps the only way in which he can, in an ordinary course, feek it; because there is no other body representing the WHOLE PEOPLE with which the crown can communicate. But as from the parliament (except perhaps in the cafe of a new one, chofen on purpose to convey the fentiments of the electors to the throne upon a particular affair, previously declared to them) no more can be had than the prefumed fenfe of the people; fo neither does the people, by chufing the parliament, renounce what they cannot transfer, their own fenfe, nor the right of having one, and of fignifying what it is, if it happens to be different from that of their representatives. And the people have a channel as constitutional as that of parliament, in which, to make known to the crown the sense which. they, the body reprefented, entertain of any one thing falling under the cognizance of parliament, or as to things which do not fo neceffarily belong to the deliberations of parliament. The people, in their several collective bodies, which form the GREAT WHOLE, where the conftitution is, as their birth right and inheritance, have a right to petition the throne. They can addrefs the king. To them belongs the privilege: the crown has the fatisfaction arifing from that fort of intercourse. In both thefe ways the crown can and does learn the real and the univerfal fenfe of the people, and may be more certainly informed of it than it can be by any vote. or refolution of parliament. Thefe pass for the fenfe of the people only when not contradicted by,

their own proper voice, or when confirmed by their filent acquiefcence. And the crown itself, in fome cafes, anxiously expects more than filence from the people. Addreffes of congratulation have a grateful odour, as they convey the people's fentiments of fatisfaction and approbation of the measures of the crown, with the expreffions of the joy they feel upon happy events.

Q. 5. Does not a majority of voices fpeak the majority of opinions, and does it not imply the fenfe and confent of the majority of the people?

Anf. A majority of voices fpeaks the majority of opinions; but only of thofe who have or give voices. Their fenfe it expreffes rather than implies. But the majority of voices of the reprefentatives of the people, neither implies nor expresses (for the utmoft it can do is to give ground to prefume) the fense and consent of the people reprefented. From which it appears, that there is a fallacy in the terms of the query as put. The fenfe of the people, and the fenfe of a majority of the house of commons, were different upen a very noted occafion. And the fenfe of the people, firmly and boldly declared at that time, rendered abortive a vote carried in parliament, tending, as the people thought (whether right or wrong) to introduce a general excife; the then minifter, with all his power, not having chose to push even a favourite object against the plain fenfe of the people.

G. 6. By what other rule or means, did there, does there at this time, or can there ever exift one fingle law?

Anf. A majority of voices in the legislature, is the only thing that can give existence to a law. The power of legiflation gives force to the law, whether it be approved or not by those from whom the legislative powers are derived, 'till they have influence to procure a repeal of it, if they happen. VOL. I. F

to

to differ in opinion from thofe in whom they have vefted the power to make laws.

Q7. To what end and purpose was the crown put under an obligation to govern by parliament, and that it was made the effential part of our conftitution?

Anf. The crown was conferred, by those who only had the right to beftow it, under conditions infeparable from the title by which it is held. One effential part of the conftitution is, the being and power of parliament. The crown and the parliament are the GOVERNMENT of this country, the fupreme executive part of which, and a third fhare of the legislative power, is by the conftitution vested in the crown, to be exercised with a privy council, and by the adminiftration of minifters, who are refponfible for the acts of the crown. The ends and purposes of this well-tempered conftitution are as apparent as they are wife and falutary. But it is none of them that the people, from which both the crown and the parliament derive their powers, fhould not have a fenfe of their own, or that they fhould be deprived of the invaluable right of making that fenfe known, both to the crown and the parliament. That right must remain facred and inviolable, fo long as we enjoy the freedom, for the fecurity of which both the crown and the parliament were intrufted with the powers they are feverally poffeffed of.

Q. 8. Would it not, of the two, be the most arbitrary proceeding in the crown to act contrary, and in oppofition to the voice of his parliament, or to attempt governing without a parliament ?

Anf. The power of the crown is not, and therefore its proceedings cannot be arbitrary; not even in thofe cafes in which it is abfolute. For it is always excrcifed by and with advice; and the advilers are anfwerable for the act. This effentially

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