overnment under heaven, that does not, in the very pursuit of the good
it proposes, naturally and inevitably lead into some inconvenience, which
makes it absolutely necessary to counterwork and weaken the application
of that first principle itself; and to abandon something of the extent of
the advantage you proposed by it, in order to prevent also the
inconveniences which have arisen from the instrument of all the good you
had in view.

To govern according to the sense and agreeably to the interests of the
people is a great and glorious object of government. This object cannot
be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular
election is a mighty evil. It is such, and so great an evil, that though
there are few nations whose monarchs were not originally elective, very
few are now elected. They are the distempers of elections, that have
destroyed all free states. To cure these distempers is difficult, if not
impossible; the only thing therefore left to save the commonwealth is to
prevent their return too frequently. The objects in view are, to have
parliaments as frequent as they can be without distracting them in the
prosecution of public business; on one hand, to secure their dependence
upon the people, on the other to give them that quiet in their minds, and
that ease in their fortunes, as to enable them to perform the most
arduous and most painful duty in the world with spirit, with efficiency,
with independency, and with experience, as real public counsellors, not
as the canvassers at a perpetual election. It is wise to compass as many
good ends as possibly you can, and seeing there are inconveniences on
both sides, with benefits on both, to give up a part of the benefit to
soften the inconvenience. The perfect cure is impracticable, because the
disorder is dear to those from whom alone the cure can possibly be
derived. The utmost to be done is to palliate, to mitigate, to respite,
to put off the evil day of the Constitution to its latest possible hour,
and may it be a very late one!

This bill, I fear, would precipitate one of two consequences, I know not
which most likely, or which most dangerous: either that the Crown by its
constant stated power, influence, and revenue, would wear out all
opposition in elections, or that a violent and furious popular spirit
would arise. I must see, to satisfy me, the remedies; I must see, from
their operation in the cure of the old evil, and in the cur