ct and enforce
sumptuary laws against luxury, and all excesses in clothing, furniture,
and the like; to encourage matrimony, and reward, as the Romans did,
those who have a certain number of children. Whether bringing over the
Palatines were a mere consequence of this law for a general
naturalization; or whether, as many surmised, it had some other meaning,
it appeared manifestly, by the issue, that the public was a loser by
every individual among them; and that a kingdom can no more be the
richer by such an importation, than a man can be fatter by a wen, which
is unsightly and troublesome, at best, and intercepts that nourishment,
which would otherwise diffuse itself through the whole body.

About a fortnight after, the Commons sent up a bill for securing the
freedom of Parliaments, by limiting the number of Members in that House
who should be allowed to possess employments under the crown.[23] Bills
to the same effect, promoted by both parties, had, after making the like
progress, been rejected in former Parliaments; the court and ministry,
who will ever be against such a law, having usually a greater influence
in the House of Lords, and so it happened now. Although that influence
were less, I am apt to think that such a law would be too thorough a
reformation in one point, while we have so many corruptions in the rest;
and perhaps the regulations, already made on that article, are
sufficient, by which several employments incapacitate a man from being
chosen a Member, and all of them bring it to a new election.[24]

[Footnote 23: This self-denying ordinance easily passed through the
House of Commons, where probably men were ashamed of opposing it; and in
such a temper were the Peers, in whose House the ministry proposed to
make the stand, that it was very likely to have passed there also. But
an amendment was ingeniously thrown in, to suspend the operation of the
proposed Act until after the Queen's death; so that it was evaded for
the present, and never again revived. [S.] The Bill was rejected
February 29th, 171-1/2. [W.S.J.]]

[Footnote 24: P. Fitzgerald adds, "Neither do I believe any man who
truly understands and loves our constitution will imagine that the
prerogative hath not been sufficiently humbled within twenty years
past." [W.S.J.]]

For my own part, when I consider the temper of particular persons, and
by what maxims they have acted (almost without exception) in their
private capacities, I cannot co