exchequer, and thence issued out to the respective offices of
payment. This revenue the people can never refuse to raise, because it
is made perpetual by act of parliament: which also, when well
considered, will appear to be a trust of great delicacy and high
importance.

UPON the whole therefore I think it is clear, that, whatever may have
become of the _nominal_, the _real_ power of the crown has not been
too far weakened by any transactions in the last century. Much is
indeed given up; but much is also acquired. The stern commands of
prerogative have yielded to the milder voice of influence; the slavish
and exploded doctrine of non-resistance has given way to a military
establishment by law; and to the disuse of parliaments has succeeded a
parliamentary trust of an immense perpetual revenue. When, indeed, by
the free operation of the sinking fund, our national debts shall be
lessened; when the posture of foreign affairs, and the universal
introduction of a well planned and national militia, will suffer our
formidable army to be thinned and regulated; and when (in consequence
of all) our taxes shall be gradually reduced; this adventitious power
of the crown will slowly and imperceptibly diminish, as it slowly and
imperceptibly rose. But, till that shall happen, it will be our
especial duty, as good subjects and good Englishmen, to reverence the
crown, and yet guard against corrupt and servile influence from those
who are intrusted with it's authority; to be loyal, yet free;
obedient, and yet independent: and, above every thing, to hope that we
may long, very long, continue to be governed by a sovereign, who, in
all those public acts that have personally proceeded from himself,
hath manifested the highest veneration for the free constitution of
Britain; hath already in more than one instance remarkably
strengthened it's outworks; and will therefore never harbour a
thought, or adopt a persuasion, in any the remotest degree detrimental
to public liberty.

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

OF SUBORDINATE MAGISTRATES.

IN a former chapter of these commentaries[a] we distinguished
magistrates into two kinds; supreme, or those in whom the sovereign
power of the state resides; and subordinate, or those who act in an
inferior secondary sphere. We have hitherto considered the former kind
only, namely, the supreme legislative power or parliament, and the
supreme executive power, which is the king: and are now to proceed to
enqu