of Commons, by which the freeholders of Middlefex are deprived of a Briton's birth-right, reprefentation in parliament.

They have indeed received the ufual writ of election, but that writ, alas! was malicious mockery; they were infulted with the form, but denied the reality, for there was one man excepted from their choice.

Non de vi, neque cæde, nec veneno,

Sed lis eft mihi de tribus capellis.

The character of the man thus fatally excepted, I have no purpose to delineate. Lampoon itself would difdain to speak ill of him of whom no man speaks well. It is fufficient that he is expelled the House of Commons, and confined in jail as being legally convicted of fedition and impiety.

That this man cannot be appointed one of the guardians and counsellors of the church and ftate, is a grievance not to be endured. Every lover of liberty flands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because the chief county in England cannot take its representative from a jail.

Whence Middlefex fhould obtain the right of being denominated the chief county, cannot easily be discovered; it is indeed the county where the chief city happens to ftand, but how that city treated the favourite of Middlefex, is not yet forgotten. The county, as distinguished from the city, has no claim to particular confideration.

That a man was in jail for fedition and impiety, would, I believe, have been within memory a fuffisient reason why he fhould not come out of jail a

legiflator. This reafon, notwithflanding the muta bility of fashion, happens ftill to operate on the Houfe 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 ufe 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 hiş character, is lawfully chofen, and has a claim to a feat in parliament, from which no human authority can depofe him.

Here, however, the patrons of oppofition are in fome perplexity. They are forced to confefs, that by a train of precedents fufficient to eftablish a cuftom 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 Houfe of Commons in fome cafes, is inevitably neceffary, fince it is required by every polity, that where there is a poffibility of offence, there fhould 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 punifh 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 legiflative;' and if they be co-ordinate, they are unaccountable; for to whom muft that power account, which has no fuperiour?

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

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 jurisdiction of the Houfe; and as the House, in the exercise of its authority, can be neither directed nor reftrained, its own refolutions must be its laws, at leaft, if there is no antecedent decifion of the whole legislature.

This privilege, not confirmed by any written law or. pofitive compact, but by the refiftless power of political neceffity, they have exercifed, 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 society 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 cafily be distinguished, ought to be expelled.

The first 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 injuftice, is without redress, however innocent, however miferable.

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

from

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 ufe once more against Mr. Wilkes, and on the 3d of February, 1769, expelled him the Houfe, for having printed and publifhed a feditious libel, and three obfcene and impious

libels.

If these imputations were juft, the expulfion was furely seasonable; and that they were just, 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 House, 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.