ped of all it's
antient revenues, so that it greatly depends on the liberality of
parliament for it's necessary support and maintenance, we may perhaps
be led to think, that the ballance is enclined pretty strongly to the
popular scale, and that the executive magistrate has neither
independence nor power enough left, to form that check upon the lords
and commons, which the founders of our constitution intended.

BUT, on the other hand, it is to be considered, that every prince, in
the first parliament after his accession, has by long usage a truly
royal addition to his hereditary revenue settled upon him for his
life; and has never any occasion to apply to parliament for supplies,
but upon some public necessity of the whole realm. This restores to
him that constitutional independence, which at his first accession
seems, it must be owned, to be wanting. And then, with regard to
power, we may find perhaps that the hands of government are at least
sufficiently strengthened; and that an English monarch is now in no
danger of being overborne by either the nobility or the people. The
instruments of power are not perhaps so open and avowed as they
formerly were, and therefore are the less liable to jealous and
invidious reflections; but they are not the weaker upon that account.
In short, our national debt and taxes (besides the inconveniences
before-mentioned) have also in their natural consequences thrown such
a weight of power into the executive scale of government, as we cannot
think was intended by our patriot ancestors; who gloriously struggled
for the abolition of the then formidable parts of the prerogative; and
by an unaccountable want of foresight established this system in their
stead. The entire collection and management of so vast a revenue,
being placed in the hands of the crown, have given rise to such a
multitude of new officers, created by and removeable at the royal
pleasure, that they have extended the influence of government to every
corner of the nation. Witness the commissioners, and the multitude of
dependents on the customs, in every port of the kingdom; the
commissioners of excise, and their numerous subalterns, in every
inland district; the postmasters, and their servants, planted in every
town, and upon every public road; the commissioners of the stamps, and
their distributors, which are full as scattered and full as numerous;
the officers of the salt duty, which, though a species of excise and
cond