stion of right. That
discretion, which in judicature is well said by Lord Coke to be a
crooked cord, in legislature is a golden rule. Supplicants ought not to
appear too much in the character of litigants. If the subject thinks so
highly and reverently of the sovereign authority as not to claim
anything of right, so that it may seem to be independent of the power
and free choice of its government,--and if the sovereign, on his part,
considers the advantages of the subjects as their right, and all their
reasonable wishes as so many claims,--in the fortunate conjunction of
these mutual dispositions are laid the foundations of a happy and
prosperous commonwealth. For my own part, desiring of all things that
the authority of the legislature under which I was born, and which I
cherish, not only with a dutiful awe, but with a partial and cordial
affection, to be maintained in the utmost possible respect, I never will
suffer myself to suppose that at bottom their discretion will be found
to be at variance with their justice.

The whole being at discretion, I beg leave just to suggest some matters
for your consideration:--Whether the government in Church or State is
likely to be more secure by continuing causes of grounded discontent to
a very great number (say two millions) of the subjects? or whether the
Constitution, combined and balanced as it is, will be rendered more
solid by depriving so large a part of the people of all concern or
interest or share in its representation, actual or _virtual_? I here
mean to lay an emphasis on the word _virtual_. Virtual representation is
that in which there is a communion of interests and a sympathy in
feelings and desires between those who act in the name of any
description of people and the people in whose name they act, though the
trustees are not actually chosen by them. This is virtual
representation. Such a representation I think to be in many cases even
better than the actual. It possesses most of its advantages, and is free
from many of its inconveniences; it corrects the irregularities in the
literal representation, when the shifting current of human affairs or
the acting of public interests in different ways carry it obliquely from
its first line of direction. The people may err in their choice; but
common interest and common sentiment are rarely mistaken. But this sort
of virtual representation cannot have a long or sure existence, if it
has not a substratum in the actual. The