ssistance?

The form of government in England, though best for the liberty of the
subject, and for the security of persons and property, is deficient in the
means of repressing those infringements which particular bodies of
people make upon the community at large. The representative system,
when well understood, divides itself into parties, having different
interests. There are the commercial, the landed, the East India, the
West India, and the law, all of which have great parliamentary
influence, and can be formidable to any minister; they therefore have a
means of defending their interests, and they are concerned so deeply
as to take a very active part whenever any questions are agitated
relative to them.

The landed interest and the law are, indeed, the only ones that have
any great party in the House of Peers; but then the House of Peers
seldom interferes in matters that concern the interests of the others.
The Lords seem not to think it their province; and, in general, more
through diffidence than negligence, they avoid meddling, though, to
do that honourable house justice, to it we owe much. Many bills, of a
dangerous tendency, have been thrown out by it, after they had passed
the other house; and it has been generally done with a wisdom,
magnanimity, and moderation, which is only to be accounted for by a
true love of the country and an upright intention. {201}

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{201} It is wonderful to what a length good intention, (zeal apart,)
will go in leading men right, even when they have not paid very
particular attention to a subject. There is a feeling of what is wise, as
well as of what is right, that partakes a little of instinct, perhaps, but
is more unerring than far fetched theory on many occasions. This was
seen in a most exemplary manner, at the time that the principles of the
French revolution were most approved of here. Those principles were
plausible, though flimsy, and founded on sophisms, and a species of
reasoning, that plain unlettered men could not answer, and men who
did give themselves the pains to reason might have answered; yet,
three times in four, it was the man who could not answer it, who,
guided by upright intentions, rejected it as bad, without being able to
tell why. The most acute were, in this case, the most deceived; for it
must now be allowed, that all approbation of the theories, relative to
the rights of man, and the manner of asserting them were wrong.
Many of those who fell into