legiflator. This reafon, notwithstanding the mutability of fashion, happens ftill to operate on the House of Commons. Their notions, however ftrange, may be juftified by a common obfervation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he whofe crimes have made confinement neceffary, feldom makes any other use of his enlargement, than to do with greater cunning what he did before with lefs.

But the people have been told with great confidence, that the Houfe cannot control the right of conftituting reprefentatives; that he who can perfuade lawful electors to chufe him, whatever be his character, is lawfully chofen, and has a claim to a feat, in parliament, from which no human authority can. depose him.

Here, however, the patrons of oppofition are in fome perplexity. They are forced to confefs, that by a train of precedents fufficient to establish a cuf tom of parliament, the Houfe of Commons has jurifdiction over its own members; that the whole has power over individuals; and that this power has been exercised sometimes in imprisonment, and often in expulfion.

That fuch power fhould refide in the House of Commons in fome cafes, is inevitably neceffary, fince it is required by every polity, that where there is a poffibility of offence, there should be a poffibility of punishment. A member of the Houfe cannot be cited for his conduct in parliament before any other court; and therefore, if the Houfe cannot punish him, he may attack with impunity the rights of the people, and the title of the king.

This exemption from the authority of other courts was, I think, first established in favour of the five members in the long parliament. It is not to be confidered as an ufurpation, for it is implied in the principles of government. If legislative powers are not co-ordinate, they ceafe in part to be legislative; and if they be co-ordinate, they are unaccountable; for to whom must that power account, which has no fuperiour?

The House of Commons is indeed diffoluble by the king, as the nation has of late been very clamorously told; but while it fubfifts it is co-ordinate with the other powers, and this co-ordination ceases only when the House by diffolution ceases to subsist,

As the particular reprefentatives of the people are in their publick character above the control of the courts of law, they must be fubject to the jurifdiction of the Houfe; and as the Houfe, in the exercife of its authority, can be neither directed nor restrained, its own refolutions must be its laws, at leaft, if there is no antecedent decifion of the whole legiflature.

This privilege, not confirmed by any written law or pofitive compact, but by the refiftless power of poli tical neceffity, they have exercised, probably from their first inftitution, but certainly, as their records inform us, from the 23d of Elizabeth, when they expelled a member for derogating from their privileges.

It may perhaps be doubted, whether it was originally neceffary, that this right of control and punishment, fhould extend beyond offences in the exercife of parliamentary duty, fince all other crimes

are cognizable by other courts. But they, who are the only judges of their own rights, have exerted the power of expulfion on other occafions, and when wickedness arrived at a certain magnitude, have confidered an offence against fociety as an offence against the House.

They have therefore divested notorious delinquents of their legislative character, and delivered them up to fhame or punishment, naked and unprotected, that they might not contaminate the dignity of parliament.

It is allowed that a man attainted of felony cannot fit in Parliament, and the Commons probably judged, that not being bound to the forms of law, they might treat these as felons, whofe crimes were in their opinion equivalent to felony; and that as a known felon could not be chofen, a man fo like a felon, that he could not eafily be diftinguished, ought to be expelled.

The firft laws had no law to enforce them, the firft authority was conftituted by itself. The power exercised by the House of Commons is of this kind, a power rooted in the principles of government, and branched out by occafional practice; a power which neceffity made juft, and precedents have made legal.

It will occur that authority thus uncontrolable may, in times of heat and conteft, be oppreffively and injuriously exerted, and that he who fuffers injustice, is without redrefs, however innocent, however miferable.

The pofition is true, but the argument is useless. The Commons must be controlled, or be exempt

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from control. If they are exempt they may do injury which cannot be redreffed, if they are controlled they are no longer legislative.

If the poffibility of abuse be an argument against authority, no authority ever can be established; if the actual abuse destroys its legality, there is no legal government now in the world.

This power, which the Commons have fo long exercised, they ventured to use once more against Mr. Wilkes, and on the 3d of February, 1769, expelled him the House, for having printed and publifhed a feditious libel, and three obfcene and impious libels.

If these imputations were juft, the expulfion was furely feasonable; and that they were juft, the House had reason to determine, as he had confeffed himself, at the bar, the author of the libel which they term seditious, and was convicted in the King's Bench of both the publications.

But the freeholders of Middlefex were of another opinion. They either thought him innocent, or were not offended by his guilt. When a writ was iffued for the election of a knight for Middlefex, in the room of John Wilkes, Efq; expelled the Houfe, his friends on the fixteenth of February chofe him again.

On the 17th, it was refolved, that John Wilkes, Efq; having been in this feffion of parliament expelled the Houfe, was, and is, incapable of being elected a member to ferve in this prefent parliament.

As there was no other candidate, it was refolved, at the fame time, that the election of the fixteenth was a void election.

The freeholders ftill continued to think that no other man was fit to reprefent them, and on the fixteenth of March elected him once more. Their resolution was now fo well known, that no opponent ventured to appear,

The Commons began to find, that power without materials for operation can produce no effect. They might make the election void for ever, but if no other candidate could be found, their determination could only be negative. They, however, made yoid the last election, and ordered a new writ.

On the thirteenth of April was a new election, at which Mr. Lutterel, and others, offered themselves candidates. Every method of intimidation was used, and fome acts of violence were done to hinder Mr. Lutterel from appearing. He was not deterred, and the poll was taken, which exhibited for

Mr. Wilkes,

Mr. Lutterel,

1143

296

The fheriff returned Mr. Wilkes; but the Houfe, on April the fifteenth, determined that Mr. Lutterel was lawfully elected.

From this day begun the clamour which has continued till now. Those who had undertaken to oppofe the miniftry, having no grievance of greater magnitude, endeavoured to fwell this decifion into bulk, and distort it into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the nation.

Every artifice of fedition has been fince practised to awaken discontent and inflame indignation. The papers of every day have been filled with exhortations and menaces of faction. The madness has

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