remains of liberty in the Peninsula. In England, on the other
hand, the Parliament was infinitely more powerful than it had
ever been. Not only was its legislative authority fully
established; but its right to interfere, by advice almost
equivalent to command, in every department of the executive
government, was recognised. The appointment of ministers, the
relations with foreign powers, the conduct of a war or a
negotiation, depended less on the pleasure of the Prince than on
that of the two Houses.

What then made us to differ? Why was it that, in that epidemic
malady of constitutions, ours escaped the destroying influence;
or rather that, at the very crisis of the disease, a favourable
turn took place in England, and in England alone? It was not
surely without a cause that so many kindred systems of
government, having flourished together so long, languished and
expired at almost the same time.

It is the fashion to say that the progress of civilisation is
favourable to liberty. The maxim, though in some sense true, must
be limited by many qualifications and exceptions. Wherever a poor
and rude nation, in which the form of government is a limited
monarchy, receives a great accession of wealth and knowledge, it
is in imminent danger of falling under arbitrary power.

In such a state of society as that which existed all over Europe
during the middle ages, very slight checks sufficed to keep the
sovereign in order. His means of corruption and intimidation were
very scanty. He had little money, little patronage, no military
establishment. His armies resembled juries. They were drawn out