1818 Aug. 25

Things as they are or First lines &c.

§.4. Instruments in Mixt Monarchy - Corruption

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The English government /Monarchy/ is not a pure Monarchy. It is a mixt Monarchy. In it the Monarch has for his incumbrances not only an under-aristocracy called the House of Lords, but a sort of democratical representative body or at least the shadow of it called the House of Commons. Neither purchasable pleasure nor court service, nor standing army, nor so much as instruments for the carrying on the civil branch /business/ of government can he get so long as the forces of the Constitution remain unchanged without the consent of the sub[?] Aristocracy in an Assembly, and that of the sort of partially representative body in which what small portion of democracy /democratical government/ is to be found any where is to be found. The Members of the House of Lords are the declared and professed guardians of one anothers’ rights of the /that/ share of power of which they are respectively partakers. They exist not scarcely do they pretend /profess/ to exist for the use of the whole people, or for any use but that of the Monarch and that of one another: if any assignable service rendered by them or any of them as such to the people at large scarcely would any one real example be to be found. In their past and present existence consists, in the ground of public utility their sole title to future existence.

The Members of the House of Commons are in profession and outward shew Guardians of the people’s rights such they accordingly profess /stile/ to be as often as in the formal language they have occasion to address themselves to the King /Monarch/, to the House of Lords, and to the people whose representatives they profess to be is - so many delegates, chosen by the people, and having in all parts the same interest with the people: chosen each of them by an adequate part of the people, chosen freely by that part, and not either in return for a bribe, or for fear of unjust suffering: chosen by the people by so many portions of the people /constituents/, in full persuasion of their pursuing each of them the interest of that the portion and thence all of them of the whole: chosen in that expectation, and thence liable each of them at any time to be removed from the trust /delegated power/ in the event of his being regarded by his constituents as having made a bad or even an insufficient use of it.