it. One supreme
change was absolutely essential to complete their system. For its
essence was that the object of the law, which was liberty, should
prevail over the letter of the law, which was restraint. It required
that public opinion should control legislation. That could not be
done without the liberty of the press; and the press was not free
while it was forbidden to publish and to discuss the debates of
parliament. That prohibition was strictly maintained. For near
thirty years we know the debates, and even the divisions, chiefly
through the reports of Bonnet the Brandenburg resident, and of
Hoffmann the Austrian resident, who tell us much that is sought vainly
in the meagre pages of Hansard. Then came the epoch of Dr. Johnson
and his colleagues in Grub Street. But when the Whig reign ended, at
the resignation of the great Commoner in 1761, the Whigs had not
admitted the nation to the parliamentary debates.

The debates were made public in 1774. The unreported parliament of
1768, as it is called, is the first that was properly reported. The
speeches were taken down by one of the members, Cavendish, the
ancestor of the Waterparks. A portion has been printed and forgotten.
The remainder is preserved in manuscript, and contains, in all, about
two hundred and fifty speeches of Edmund Burke. It is of no little
value to political students, inasmuch as Burke at his best is England
at its best. Through him and through American influence upon him, the
sordid policy of the Walpolean Whigs became a philosophy, and a
combination of expedients was changed into a system of general
principles.

XVII

PETER THE GREAT AND THE RISE OF PRUSSIA

WHILST THE English people, with the example and assistance of the
Dutch, were carrying forward the theory of constitutional government,
a still more important movement in the opposite direction was
proceeding in the North, and new forces were brought into the widening
circle of general history.

The Muscovite empire extended from the frontiers of Poland to the
farthest extremity of China. In numbers and in extent it was the
first of Christian Powers. But it played no part in the concert or
the conflict of Europe, and its existence was almost unnoticed and
unfelt. The people were too backward in the scale of wealth or
knowledge or civilisation to obtain influence even on their
neighbours. Potentially the most formidable force on earth,
practically they were forgotte