nd
shockingly corrupt, it would increase his dependence on those who could
best support him at his election, it would wrack and tear to pieces the
fortunes of those who stood upon their own fortunes and their private
interest, it would make the electors infinitely more venal, and it would
make the whole body of the people, who are, whether they have votes or
not, concerned in elections, more lawless, more idle, more debauched; it
would utterly destroy the sobriety, the industry, the integrity, the
simplicity of all the people, and undermine, I am much afraid, the
deepest and best laid foundations of the commonwealth.

Those who have spoken and written upon this subject without doors, do not
so much deny the probable existence of these inconveniences in their
measure, as they trust for the prevention to remedies of various sorts,
which they propose. First, a place bill; but if this will not do, as
they fear it will not, then, they say, we will have a rotation, and a
certain number of you shall be rendered incapable of being elected for
ten years. Then, for the electors, they shall ballot; the members of
parliament also shall decide by ballot; and a fifth project is the change
of the present legal representation of the kingdom. On all this I shall
observe, that it will be very unsuitable to your wisdom to adopt the
project of a bill, to which there are objections insuperable by anything
in the bill itself, upon the hope that those objections may be removed by
subsequent projects; every one of which is full of difficulties of its
own, and which are all of them very essential alterations in the
Constitution. This seems very irregular and unusual. If anything should
make this a very doubtful measure, what can make it more so than that, in
the opinion of its advocates, it would aggravate all our old
inconveniences in such a manner as to require a total alteration in the
Constitution of the kingdom? If the remedies are proper in a triennial,
they will not be less so in septennial elections; let us try them first,
see how the House relishes them, see how they will operate in the nation;
and then, having felt your way, you will be prepared against these
inconveniences.

The honourable gentleman sees that I respect the principle upon which he
goes, as well as his intentions and his abilities. He will believe that
I do not differ from him wantonly, and on trivial grounds. He is very
sure that it was not his embracing one