fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best
appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by
the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the
Representatives and the People. The Court Faction have at length
committed them.

In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest
staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have
hardly any landmarks from the wisdom of our ancestors to guide us.
At best we can only follow the spirit of their proceeding in other
cases. I know the diligence with which my observations on our
public disorders have been made. I am very sure of the integrity of
the motives on which they are published: I cannot be equally
confident in any plan for the absolute cure of those disorders, or
for their certain future prevention. My aim is to bring this matter
into more public discussion. Let the sagacity of others work upon
it. It is not uncommon for medical writers to describe histories of
diseases, very accurately, on whose cure they can say but very
little.

The first ideas which generally suggest themselves for the cure of
Parliamentary disorders are, to shorten the duration of Parliaments,
and to disqualify all, or a great number of placemen, from a seat in
the House of Commons. Whatever efficacy there may be in those
remedies, I am sure in the present state of things it is impossible
to apply them. A restoration of the right of free election is a
preliminary indispensable to every other reformation. What
alterations ought afterwards to be made in the constitution is a
matter of deep and difficult research.