derives from the people, and that the people are under no irrevocable contract or obligation to continue any member of the House of Brunswick on the throne. The following Parliamentary dicta support this opinion:

The Honorable Temple Luttrell, in a speech made in the House of Commons, on the 7th November, 1775, showed “that of thirty-three sovereigns since William the Conqueror, thirteen only have ascended the throne by divine hereditary right. . . . The will of the people, superseding any hereditary claim to succession, at the commencement of the twelfth century placed Henry I on the throne", and this subject to conditions as to laws to be made by Henry. King John was compelled solemnly to register an assurance of the ancient rights of the people in a formal manner; and this necessary work was accomplished by the Congress at Runnymede, in the year 1115. "Sir, in the

reign of Henry III (about the year 1223), the barons, clergy, and freeholders, understanding that the King, as Earl of Poictou, had landed some of his continental troops on the western ports of England, with a design to strengthen a most odious and arbitrary set of ministers, they assembled in a Convention or Congress, whence they despatched deputies to King Henry, declaring that if he did not immediately send back those Poictouvians, and remove from his person and councils evil advisers, they would place upon the throne a prince who should better observe the laws of the land. Sir, the King not only hearkened to the Congress, but shortly after complied with every article of their demand, and publicly notified his reformation. Now, sir, what are we to call that assembly which dethroned Edward II when the Archbishop of Canterbury preached a sermon on this text, The voice of the people is the voice of God'?" "A Prince of the House of Lancaster was invited over from banishment, and elected by the people to the throne", on the fall of Richard II. "I shall next proceed to the general Convention and Congress, which in 1461 enthroned the Earl of March by the name of Edward IV, the Primate of all England collecting the suffrages of the people." "In 1659 a Convention or Congress restored legal Monarchy in the person of Charles II."

William Pitt, on the 16th December, 1788, being then Chan

cellor of the Exchequer, contended that "the right of providing for the deficiency of Royal authority rested with the two remaining branches of the Legislature;" and asked, "on the disability of the Sovereign, where was the right to be found? It was to be found in the voice, in the sense of the people, with them it rested". On the 22nd December Mr. Pitt said that Mr. Fox had contended that "the two Houses of Parliament cannot proceed to legislate without a King". His (Mr. Pitt's) answer was: "The conduct of the Revolution had contradicted that assertion; they had acted legislatively, and, no King being present, they must consequently have acted without a King ".

Mr. Hardinge, afterwards Solicitor-General and Judge, in the same debate, said: "The virtues of our ancestors and the genius of the Government accurately understood, a century ago, had prompted the Lords and Commons of the realm to pass a law without a King; and a law which, as he had always read it, had put upon living record this principle: 'That whenever the express executive hand shall have lost its power to act, the people of the land, fully and freely represented, can alone repair the defect"."

On the 26th December, in the House of Lords, discussing the power to exclude a sitting Monarch from the throne, the Earl of Abingdon said: "Will a King exclude himself? No no! my Lords, that exclusion appertains to us and to the other House of Parliament exclusively. It is to us it belongs, it is our duty. It is the business of the Lords and Commons of Great Britain, and of us alone, as the trustees and representatives of the nation." And, following up this argument, Lord Abingdon contended that, in the contingency he was alluding to, "the right to new model or alter the succession vests in the Parliament of England without the King, in the Lords and Commons of Great Britain solely and exclusively."

Lord Stormont, in the same debate, pointed out that William III" possessed no other right to the throne than that which he derived from the votes of the two Houses".

The Marquis of Lansdowne said: "One of the best constitutional writers we had was Mr. Justice Foster, who, in his book on the Principles of the Constitution', denies the right

even of hereditary succession, and says it is no right whatever, but merely a political expedient. . . . The Crown, Mr. Justice Foster said, was not merely a descendable property like a laystall or a pigstye, but was put in trust for millions, and for the happiness of ages yet unborn, which Parliament has it always in its power to mould, to shape, to alter, to fashion, just as it shall think proper. And, in speaking of Parliament", his lordship said, "Mr. Justice Foster repeatedly spoke of the two Houses of Parliament only".

Stephen's Commentaries", vol. 2, p. 430, says that the executive power of the English nation is vested in a single person by the general consent of the people; but "that the right of the reigning prince may from time to time be set aside by Act of Parliament in favor of a new sovereign"; and on page 435, "The doctrine of hereditary right does by no means imply an indefeasible right to the throne-". "It is unquestionably in the breast of the supreme legislative authority of the Kingdom-the sovereign and both Houses of Parliament-to defeat this hereditary right" "to exclude the immediate heir and vest the inheritance in anyone else." Stephen, p. 445, quotes 7 Henry IV, cap. 2, as showing "that the King and Parliament had a right to new model and regulate the succession"; p. 449, that the 13 Elizabeth, cap. 1, declares it high treason to affirm that "laws and statutes do not bind the right of the Crown, and the descent, limitation, inheritance or government thereof ". On p. 452 he gives "those instances wherein the Parliament since the restoration has asserted or exercised this right of altering or limiting the succession, a right which was before exercised and asserted in the reign of Henry IV, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth." His first instance is the Bill of Exclusion, which passed both Houses, but was vetoed by Charles II, and which proposed to set aside the King's brother and presumptive heir. Stephen says this shows "That the Parliament had the power to have defeated the inheritance". Thus in 1688 "it was the act of the nation alone".

My object being to procure the repeal by Parliament of the only title under which any member of the House of Brunswick

could claim to succeed the present sovereign on the throne, or to procure a special enactment which shall for the future exclude the Brunswicks, as the Stuarts were excluded in 1688 and 1701, the following grounds are submitted as justifying and requiring such repeal or new enactment:

Ist. That during the period through which the Brunswick family have reigned over the British Empire, the policy and conduct of the majority of the members of that family, and especially of the various reigning members, always saving and excepting her present Majesty, have been hostile to the welfare of the mass of the people. This will be sought to be proved by a sketch of the principal events in the reign of each monarch, from August 1st, 1714, to the present date.

2nd. That during the same period nearly fourteen-fifteenths of the entire National Debt have been created, and that the balance due of this debt is in great part the result of wars arising from the mischievous and pro-Hanoverian policy of the Brunswick family.

3rd. That in consequence of the incompetence or want of desire for governmental duty on the part of the first four of the reigning members of the House of Brunswick, the governing power of the country has been practically limited to a few families who have used government in too many instances as a means of advancing their own interests; while it is submitted that government should be the best contrivance of national wisdom for the alleviation of national suffering and promotion of national happiness. Earl Grey declared that “Our national annals since the Revolution of 1688 present a sad picture of the selfishness, baseness, and corruption of the great majority of the actors on the political stage".

4th. That a huge pension list was created, the recipients of the largest pensions, or of the commutation price for such pensions, being in most cases persons who were already members of wealthy families, and who had done nothing whatever to justify their being kept in idleness at the national expense.

5th. That the preceding monarchs of the Brunswick family have been, except in a few cases where they have distinguished themselves by vicious interference, costly puppets, useful only

to the governing aristocracy as a cloak to shield the real. wrongdoers from the just reproaches of the people.

6th. That the Brunswick family have shown themselves utterly incapable of initiating or encouraging wise legislation. George I was shut out practically from the government by his utter ignorance of the English language, his want of sympathy with British habits, and his frequent absences from this country. A volume of history, published by Messrs. Longman in 1831, says that "George I continued a German princeling on the British throne-surrounded still by his petty Hanoverian satellites, and so ignorant even of the language of his new subjects, that his English minister, who understood neither French nor German, could communicate with him only by an imperfect jargon of barbarous Latin." He "discarded his wife, and had two mistresses publicly installed in their Court rights and privileges". Earl Grey affirms that "the highly beneficial practice of holding Cabinet Councils without the presence of the sovereign arose from George the First's not knowing English". Leslie describes George I as altogether ignorant of our language, laws, customs, and constitution. Madame de Maintenon writes of him as disgusted with his subjects. George II was utterly indifferent to English improvement, and was mostly away in Hanover. Lord Hervey's "Memoirs" portray him as caring for nothing but soldiers and women, and declare that his highest ambition was to combine the reputation of a great general with that of a successful libertine. George III was' repeatedly insane, and in his officially lucid moments his sanity was more dangerous to England than his madness. Buckle says that he was "despotic as well as superstitious.

Every liberal sentiment, everything approaching to reform, nay, even the mere mention of inquiry, was an abomination in the eyes of that narrow and ignorant prince." Lord Grenville, his Prime Minister, said of him: "He had perhaps the narrowest mind of any man I ever knew". George IV was a dissipated, drunken debauchee, bad husband, unfaithful lover, untrustworthy friend, unnatural father, corrupt regent, and worse king. Buckle speaks of "the incredible baseness of that ignoble voluptuary". William IV was obstinate and