ompletely abrogated:--and it is in vain to
suppose that if even such a change was desirable, it could possibly be
effected without producing a train of incalculable miseries that would
much more than overbalance any partial good which could reasonably be
expected from the alteration....'

'As property then is incontestibly the foundation-stone of political
right in Britain, it follows, as an inevitable consequence, that the
ratio of these rights should be in some measure commensurate to the
extent of the property, otherwise the immutable maxims of justice, as
well as the spirit of the Constitution, is violated; for it would be
palpably unjust to put a man who possessed a great stake in the welfare
of the Country, and paid comparatively a greater proportion of its
public revenue, on a level with the inferior freeholders, who, not
possessing any thing like an equal extent of property, cannot possibly
have the means of equally contributing to the exigencies of the State....

'Now if any considerate conscientious man will calmly reflect upon the
power of the House of Commons in the imposition of taxes, and in how
many ways the public burthen affects the landed interest, either
directly or indirectly, he must acknowledge the expediency, as well as
the necessity and justice of the system, which, _steadily though
silently_, protects the great landholders in exercising an appropriate
influence in the election of the Representatives of the
People.--PHOCION.'

Previous to the Reign of Henry the Seventh, the Peers defended their
property and their privileges through the means of armed Retainers. That
politic Prince, by laws directed against the number of these Retainers;
by bringing in use the making of leases; and by statutes framed for the
purpose of 'unfettering more easily the Estates of his powerful
Nobility, and laying them more open to alienation,' prepared the way for
reducing the power of an Order which had been too strong for the Crown.
The operation of these laws, in course of time, would have brought the
Peers, as an Estate of the Realm, to utter insignificance, had not the
practice of supplying the Peerage with new Members, through creation by
patent without intervention of Parliament, been substituted for the only
mode previously tolerated by the great Barons for the exercise of this
royal prerogative, namely, by authority of Parliament. Thus did the
consequence of the Order, notwithstanding the diminution of its p