may rob an English king of
his crown. In another view, the resolution of the House of Commons,
apparently not so dangerous to your Majesty, is still more alarming to
your people. Not contented with divesting one man of his right, they
have arbitrarily conveyed that right to another. They have set aside a
return as illegal, without daring to censure those officers who were
particularly apprised of Mr. Wilkes' incapacity, not only by the
declaration of the House, but expressly by the writ directed to them,
and who, nevertheless, returned him as duly elected. They have rejected
the majority of votes, the only criterion by which our laws judge of
the sense of the people; they have transferred the right of election
from the collective to the representative body; and by these acts,
taken separately or together, they have essentially altered the
original constitution of the House of Commons. Versed as your Majesty
undoubtedly is in the English history, it cannot escape you how much it
is your interest as well as your duty to prevent one of the three
estates from encroaching upon the province of the other two, or
assuming the authority of them all. When once they have departed from
the great constitutional line by which all their proceedings should be
directed, who will answer for their future moderation? Or what
assurance will they give you that, when they have trampled upon their
equals, they will submit to a superior? Your Majesty may learn
hereafter how nearly the slave and tyrant are allied.

Some of your council, more candid than the rest, admit the abandoned
profligacy of the present House of Commons, but oppose their
dissolution, upon an opinion, I confess, not very unwarrantable, that
their successors would be equally at the disposal of the treasury. I
cannot persuade myself that the nation will have profited so little by
experience. But if that opinion were well founded, you might then
gratify our wishes at an easy rate, and appease the present clamour
against your government, without offering any material injury to the
favourite cause of corruption.

You have still an honourable part to act. The affections of your
subjects may still be recovered. But before you subdue their hearts you
must gain a noble victory over your own. Discard those little, personal
resentments which have too long directed your public conduct. Pardon
this man the remainder of his punishment; and, if resentment still
prevails, make it what it