7 Aug. 1809

Parl. Ref.

Ch. Necessity Hume

3

3

In this case what we should have under the name of a Parliament would be a sort of Roman Senate under the Tiberius Cæsars, or a sort of French Corps Legislatif under Bonaparte.

In one of the two Houses {the House} the House of Lords we have somewhat of that sort already and thus far, so long as /if/ the House of Commons were what it ought to be, all would be well: and sooner or later were things to continue in their present train the House of Commons would /might/ become like unto it: the House of Commons Elections falling into the track of the Election of Scotch Peers and the Election of Irish Peers.

In the other case we should have a Commonwealth. And what sort of a Commonwealth? Such an one as we see already established /exemplified/ in the effect of /from/ the british Constitution that has been transplanted into America?

And do you wish then to see such a Commonwealth in the British Isles? - No indeed do I not. But what I have now to compare is not an evil with a good but what I look upon as two evils: viz an absolute monarchico-aristocratical government disguised under the forms /guise/ of a limited one, and an undisguised Commonwealth: and under the argumentative necessity I choose the Commonwealth as being that one of the two evils, which to me appears the least.

Note to say that the British government would by this time have been converted into such disguised despotism but for the Grenville Act the admission of auditors into the two Houses, and the license we still have by sufferance of what remains undestroyed of the liberty of the press.