If I wrote merely to please the popular palate, it would indeed be
as little troublesome to me as to another to extol these remedies,
so famous in speculation, but to which their greatest admirers have
never attempted seriously to resort in practice. I confess them,
that I have no sort of reliance upon either a Triennial Parliament
or a Place-bill. With regard to the former, perhaps, it might
rather serve to counteract than to promote the ends that are
proposed by it. To say nothing of the horrible disorders among the
people attending frequent elections, I should be fearful of
committing, every three years, the independent gentlemen of the
country into a contest with the Treasury. It is easy to see which
of the contending parties would be ruined first. Whoever has taken
a careful view of public proceedings, so as to endeavour to ground
his speculations on his experience, must have observed how
prodigiously greater the power of Ministry is in the first and last
session of a Parliament, than it is in the intermediate periods,
when Members sit a little on their seats. The persons of the
greatest Parliamentary experience, with whom I have conversed, did
constantly, in canvassing the fate of questions, allow something to
the Court side, upon account of the elections depending or imminent.
The evil complained of, if it exists in the present state of things,
would hardly be removed by a triennial Parliament: for, unless the
influence of Government in elections can be entirely taken away, the
more frequently they return, the more they will harass private
independence; the more generally men will be compelled to fly to the
settled systematic interest of Government, and to the resources of a
boundless Civil List. Certainly something may be done, and ought to
be done, towards lessening that influence in elections; and this
will be necessary upon a plan either of longer or shorter duration
of Parliament. But nothing can so perfectly remove the evil, as not