as
many representatives. This is the spirit of our constitution: not that
I assert it is in fact quite so perfect as I have here endeavoured to
describe it; for, if any alteration might be wished or suggested in
the present frame of parliaments, it should be in favour of a more
complete representation of the people.

BUT to return to our qualifications; and first those of electors for
knights of the shire. 1. By statute 8 Hen. VI. c. 7. and 10 Hen. VI.
c. 2. The knights of the shires shall be chosen of people dwelling in
the same counties; whereof every man shall have freehold to the value
of forty shillings by the year within the county; which by subsequent
statutes is to be clear of all charges and deductions, except
parliamentary and parochial taxes. The knights of shires are the
representatives of the landholders, or landed interest, of the
kingdom: their electors must therefore have estates in lands or
tenements, within the county represented: these estates must be
freehold, that is, for term of life at least; because beneficial
leases for long terms of years were not in use at the making of these
statutes, and copyholders were then little better than villeins,
absolutely dependent upon their lord: this freehold must be of forty
shillings annual value; because that sum would then, with proper
industry, furnish all the necessaries of life, and render the
freeholder, if he pleased, an independent man. For bishop Fleetwood,
in his _chronicon pretiosum_ written about sixty years since, has
fully proved forty shillings in the reign of Henry VI to have been
equal to twelve pounds _per annum_ in the reign of queen Anne; and, as
the value of money is very considerably lowered since the bishop
wrote, I think we may fairly conclude, from this and other
circumstances, that what was equivalent to twelve pounds in his days
is equivalent to twenty at present. The other less important
qualifications of the electors for counties in England and Wales may
be collected from the statutes cited in the margin[x]; which direct,
2. That no person under twenty one years of age shall be capable of
voting for any member. This extends to all sorts of members, as well
for boroughs as counties; as does also the next, viz. 3. That no
person convicted of perjury, or subornation of perjury, shall be
capable of voting in any election. 4. That no person shall vote in
right of any freehold, granted to him fraudulently to qualify him to
vote. Fraudu