when different bodies succeed each other, if the people see cause to disapprove of the present, they may rectify it's faults in the next. A legislative assembly also, which is sure to be separated again, (whereby it's members will themselves become private men, and subject to the full extent of the laws which they have enacted for others) will think themselves bound, in interest as well as duty, to make only such laws as are good. The utmost extent of time that the fame parliament was allowed to fit, by the statute 6 W. & M. c. 2. was three years; after the expiration of which, reckoning from the return of the first summons, the parliament was to have no longer continuance. But by the statute 1 Geo. I. st. 2. c. 38. (in order, professedly, to prevent the great and continued expenses of frequent elections, and the violent heats and animofities consequent thereupon, and for the peace and security of the government then just recovering from the late rebellion) this term was prolonged to seven years; and, what alone is an instance of the vast authority of parliament, the very fame house, that was chosen for three years, enacted it's own continuance for seven. So that, as our constitution now stands, the parliament must expire, or die a natural death, at the end of every seventh year; if not fooner diffolved by the royal prerogative.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

OF THE KING, AND HIS TITLE.

T

HE fupreme executive power of these kingdoms is vested by our laws in a single person, the king or queen : for it matters not to which sex the crown descends; but the perfon entitled to it, whether male or female, is immediately invested with all the ensigns, rights, and prerogatives of sovereign power; as is declared by statute 1 Mar. st. 3. c. 1.

IN discourfing of the royal rights and authority, I shall consider the king under fix distinct views : 1. With regard to his title. 2. His royal family. 3. His councils. 4. His duties. 5. His prerogative. 6. His revenue. And, first, with regard to his title.

THE executive power of the English nation being vested in a fingle person, by the general consent of the people, the evidence of which general confent is long and immemorial usage, it became necessary to the freedom and peace of the state, that a rule should be laid down, uniform, universal, and permanent; in order to mark out with precision, who is that single person, to whom are committed (in subservience to the law of the land) the care and protection of the community; and to whom, in return, the duty and allegiance of every individual are due. It is of the highest importance to the public tranquillity, and to the confciences sciences of private men, that this rule should be clear and indifputable: and our constitution has not left us in the dark upon this material occafion. It will therefore be the endeavour of this chapter to trace out the conftitutional doctrine of the royal fucceffion, with that freedom and regard to truth, yet mixed with that reverence and respect, which the principles of liberty and the dignity of the subject require.

THE grand fundamental maxim upon which the jus coronae, or right of fucceffion to the throne of these kingdoms, depends, I take to be this: "that the crown is, by common law and "constitutional custom, hereditary; and this in a manner pecu"liar to itself: but that the right of inheritance may from time "to time be changed or limited by act of parliament; under "which limitations the crown still continues hereditary." And this proposition it will be the business of this chapter to prove, in all it's branches: first, that the crown is hereditary; secondly, that it is hereditary in a manner peculiar to itself; thirdly, that this inheritance is subject to limitation by parliament; lastly, that when it is so limited, it is hereditary in the new proprietor.

1. FIRST, it is in general hereditary, or defcendible to the next heir, on the death or demise of the last proprietor. All regal governments must be either hereditary or elective : and, as I believe there is no instance wherein the crown of England has ever been afferted to be elective, except by the regicides at the infamous and unparalleled trial of king Charles I, it must of consequence be hereditary. Yet while I affert an hereditary, I by no means intend a jure divino, title to the throne. Such a title may be allowed to have subsisted under the theocratic establishments of the children of Ifrael in Palestine: but it never yet fubfifted in any other country; save only fo far as kingdoms, like other human fabrics, are subject to the general and ordinary difpenfations of providence. Nor indeed have a jure divino and an hereditary right any neceffary connexion with each other; as some have very weakly imagined. The titles of David and Jehu were equally jure jure divino, as those of either Solomon or Ahab; and yet David flew the fons of his predecessor, and Jehu his predecessor himself. And when our kings have the fame warrant as they had, whether it be to fit upon the throne of their fathers, or to destroy the house of the preceding fovereign, they will then, and not before, possess the crown of England by a right like theirs, immediately derived from heaven. The hereditary right, which the laws of England acknowlege, owes it's origin to the founders of our constitution, and to them only. It has no relation to, nor depends upon, the civil laws of the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, or any other nation upon earth: the municipal laws of one society having no connexion with, or influence upon, the fundamental polity of another. The founders of our English monarchy might perhaps, if they had thought proper, have made it an elective monarchy: but they rather chose, and upon good reason, to establish originally a succession by inheritance. This has been acquiefced in by general consent; and ripened by degrees into common law: the very fame title that every private man has to his own estate. Lands are not naturally descendible any more than thrones: but the law has thought proper, for the benefit and peace of the public, to establish hereditary succession in one as well as the other.

It must be owned, an elective monarchy seems to be the most obvious, and best suited of any to the rational principles of government, and the freedom of human nature : and accordingly we find from history that, in the infancy and first rudiments of almoft every state, the leader, chief magistrate, or prince, hath usually been elective. And, if the individuals who compose that state could always continue true to first principles, uninfluenced by passion or prejudice, unaffailed by corruption, and unawed by violence, elective fucceffion were as much to be defired in a kingdom, as in other inferior communities. The best, the wisest, and the bravest inan would then be sure of receiving that crown, which his endowments have merited; and the sense of an unbiassed majority would be dutifully acquiefced in by the few who were

of different opinions. But history and observation will inform us, that elections of every kind (in the present state of human nature) are too frequently brought about by influence, partiality, and artifice: and, even where the cafe is otherwise, these practices will be often fufpected, and as constantly charged upon the fuccefsful, by a splenetic disappointed minority. This is an evil, to which all societies are liable; ; as well those of a private and domeftic kind, as the great community of the public, which regulates and includes the rest. But in the former there is this advantage; that such fufpicions, if false, proceed no farther than jealoufies and murmurs, which time will effectually suppress ; and, if true, the injustice may be remedied by legal means, by an appeal to those tribunals to which every member of society has (by becoming such) virtually engaged to submit. Whereas, in the great and independent fociety, which every nation composes, there is no fuperior to refort to but the law of nature; no method to redress the infringements of that law, but the actual exertion of private force. As therefore between two nations, complaining of mutual injuries, the quarrel can only be decided by the law of arms; so in one and the fame nation, when the fundamental principles of their common union are supposed to be invaded, and more especially when the appointment of their chief magistrate is alleged to be unduly made, the only tribunal to which the complainants can appeal is that of the God of battels, the only process by which the appeal can be carried on is that of a civil and intestine war. An hereditary fucceffion to the crown is therefore now established, in this and most other countries, in order to prevent that periodical bloodshed and misery, which the history of antient imperial Rome, and the more modern experience of Poland and Germany, may shew us are the consequences of elective kingdoms.

2. BUT, secondly, as to the particular mode of inheritance, it in general corresponds with the feodal path of defcents, chalked out by the common law in the fucceffion to landed estates; yet with one or two material exceptions. Like them, the crown will defcend