rily
comprehending many people of the first weight, ability, wealth, and
spirit, has been gradually formed in the kingdom. These new interests
must be let into a share of representation, else possibly they may be
inclined to destroy those institutions of which they are not permitted to
partake. This is not a thing to be trifled with: nor is it every well-
meaning man that is fit to put his hands to it. Many other serious
considerations occur. I do not open them here, because they are not
directly to my purpose; proposing only to give the reader some taste of
the difficulties that attend all capital changes in the Constitution;
just to hint the uncertainty, to say no worse, of being able to prevent
the Court, as long as it has the means of influence abundantly in its
power, from applying that influence to Parliament; and perhaps, if the
public method were precluded, of doing it in some worse and more
dangerous method. Underhand and oblique ways would be studied. The
science of evasion, already tolerably understood, would then be brought
to the greatest perfection. It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to
know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by attempting a
degree of purity impracticable in degenerate times and manners, instead
of cutting off the subsisting ill practices, new corruptions might be
produced for the concealment and security of the old. It were better,
undoubtedly, that no influence at all could affect the mind of a Member
of Parliament. But of all modes of influence, in my opinion, a place
under the Government is the least disgraceful to the man who holds it,
and by far the most safe to the country. I would not shut out that sort
of influence which is open and visible, which is connected with the
dignity and the service of the State, when it is not in my power to
prevent the influence of contracts, of subscriptions, of direct bribery,
and those innumerable methods of clandestine corruption, which are
abundantly in the hands of the Court, and which will be applied as long
as these means of corruption, and the disposition to be corrupted, have
existence amongst us. Our Constitution stands on a nice equipoise, with
steep precipices and deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing it
from a dangerous leaning towards one side, there may be a risk of
oversetting it on the other. Every project of a material change in a
Government so complicated as ours, combined at the same time with