Gentlemen, I know, feel the weight of this argument; they agree, that
this would be the consequence of more frequent elections, if things were
to continue as they are. But they think the greatness and frequency of
the evil would itself be, a remedy for it,--that, sitting but for a
short time, the member would not find it worth while to make such vast
expenses, while the fear of their constituents will hold them the more
effectually to their duty.

To this I answer, that experience is full against them. This is no new
thing; we have had triennial Parliaments; at no period of time were
seats more eagerly contested. The expenses of elections ran higher,
taking the state of all charges, than they do now. The expense of
entertainments was such, that an act, equally, severe and ineffectual,
was made against it; every monument of the time bears witness of the
expense, and most of the acts against corruption in elections were then
made; all the writers talked of it and lamented it. Will any one think
that a corporation will be contented with a bowl of punch or a piece of
beef the less, because elections are every three, instead of every seven
years? Will they change their wine for ale, because they are to get more
ale three years hence? Don't think it. Will they make fewer demands for
the advantages o£ patronage in favors and offices, because their member
is brought more under their power? We have not only our own historical
experience in England upon this subject, but we have the experience
coexisting with us in Ireland, where, since their Parliament has been
shortened, the expense of elections has been so far from being lowered,
that it has been very near doubled. Formerly they sat for the king's
life; the ordinary charge of a seat in Parliament was then fifteen
hundred pounds. They now sit eight years, four sessions; it is now
twenty-five hundred pounds, and upwards. The spirit of _emulation_ has