第69章 Letter XVII(1)

Sir ,The great alteration we have spoken of,in property and power,brought our constitution,by slow degrees,and through many struggles and dangers,so near the most perfect idea of a free system of government,that nothing would be now wanting to complete it,if effectual means were found of securing the independency of Parliament against corruption,as well as it is secured against prerogative.Our Kings have lost little of the gaudy plumage of the crown.Some of their superfluous power,indeed,hath been bought,and more hath been wrested from them.Notwithstanding which,it is a very demonstrable truth,that the crown must sit lighter and more secure on the head of a wise prince (and no constitution provides for,though every constitution should provide against,a weak prince),since the great change of property and power in favour of the commons,than ever it did before.

Our Kings are no longer exposed,as some of the greatest of them have been,to the insults of turbulent,ambitious lords,or haughty prelates.It is no longer in the power of a few factious noblemen to draw armies into the field,and oblige their prince to fight for his crown,to fight to gain it,and to fight to keep it;as Edward the Fourth did,I think,in nine pitched battles.To make the prince uneasy,or insecure,as we are now constituted,the whole body of the people must be uneasy under his government.A popular King of Great Britain will be always not only easy and secure,but in effect absolute.He will be,what the British constitution alone can make any prince,the absolute monarch of a free people;and this popularity is so easily acquired,a King gains the public confidence and affection at so cheap a rate,that he must be poor indeed in all the kingly virtues,who does not purchase them,and establish true popularity upon them.

If the condition of our Kings is mended in many respects,and made worse in none,that of the nation is mended in every respect,by the great improvements of our constitution;which are due principally to the change I have mentioned,as the advances we have.made in trade,and in national wealth and power,are due principally to these improvements.It is by these,that the subjects of Great Britain enjoy hitherto such a freedom of their persons,and such a security of their property,as no other people can boast.Hence that great encouragement of industry;hence that broad and solid foundation of credit,which must always continue,unless the weight of taxes,and the oppression of tax-gatherers make it worth no man's while to be industrious any longer,and unless national credit be reduced,by length of time,and private management,to rest no longer on its natural and original foundation,but on the feeble props of yearly expedients,and daily tricks;by which a system,that ought to be the plainest and fairest imaginable,will become of course a dark,intricate,and wicked mystery of stockjobbing.

But the great advantage we are to insist upon here,which hath arisen to the whole nation from the alteration in the state of property and power,is this:that we have been brought by it to the true poise of a mixed government,constituted like ours in the three simple forms.The democratical power is no longer kept under the same dependencies;and if an House of Commons should now fail to assert that independent share in the supreme legislative power,which the constitution assigns to this assembly,it could not proceed,as it might and sometimes did formerly,from the nature of tenures,and many other unavoidable restraints;it could proceed alone from the corruption of particular men,who threw themselves into a voluntary dependency.The democratical power of our constitution is not sufficient to overtop the monarchical and aristocratical;but it is sufficient to counterwork and balance any other power by its own strength,and without the fatal necessity of favouring the ambition of the crown against the lords,or that of the lords against the crown.Nay more,as our government is now constituted,the three estates have not only one common interest,which they always had;but they have,considered as estates,no separate,contradictory interest.Our constitution gives so much grandeur,so much authority and power to the crown,and our Parliaments give so immense a revenue,that no prince hath any real interest to desire more,who looks on himself as the supreme magistrate of a free people;for if we suppose inordinate ambition,or avarice,to make part of his character,these passions are insatiable:but then for this very reason,because they are so,there ought to be no account held of them;and though a prince may measure his demands,a people,who are in their senses,will never measure their concessions by them.