nounce it as a law of brutal injustice. Were we not
accustomed to the daily practice, and did we only hear of it as the
law of some distant part of the world, we should conclude that
the legislators of such countries had not arrived at a state of
civilisation.

As to its preserving a character of weight and consequence, the case
appears to me directly the reverse. It is an attaint upon character;
a sort of privateering on family property. It may have weight among
dependent tenants, but it gives none on a scale of national, and much
less of universal character. Speaking for myself, my parents were not
able to give me a shilling, beyond what they gave me in education; and
to do this they distressed themselves: yet, I possess more of what is
called consequence, in the world, than any one in Mr. Burke's catalogue
of aristocrats.

Having thus glanced at some of the defects of the two houses of
parliament, I proceed to what is called the crown, upon which I shall be
very concise.

It signifies a nominal office of a million sterling a year, the business
of which consists in receiving the money. Whether the person be wise
or foolish, sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not. Every
ministry acts upon the same idea that Mr. Burke writes, namely, that the
people must be hood-winked, and held in superstitious ignorance by some
bugbear or other; and what is called the crown answers this purpose, and
therefore it answers all the purposes to be expected from it. This is
more than can be said of the other two branches.

The hazard to which this office is exposed in all countries, is not from
anything that can happen to the man, but from what may happen to the
nation--the danger of its coming to its senses.

It has been customary to call the crown the executive power, and the
custom is continued, though the reason has ceased.

It was called the executive, because the person whom it signified
used, formerly, to act in the character of a judge, in administering
or executing the laws. The tribunals were then a part of the court. The
power, therefore, which is now called the judicial, is what was called
the executive and, consequently, one or other of the terms is redundant,
and one of the offices useless. When we speak of the crown now, it means
nothing; it signifies neither a judge nor a general: besides which it
is the laws that govern, and not the man. The old terms are kept up, to
give an appearance of consequence to