ltogether impossible, to regulate by laws, and which must be
governed by certain delicate ideas of propriety and decency, rather than
by any exact rule or prescription. To deny the parliament all right of
remonstrating against what they esteem grievances, were to reduce that
assembly to a total insignificancy, and to deprive the people of every
advantage which they could reap from popular councils. To complain
of the parliament's employing the power of taxation as the means of
extorting concessions from their sovereign, were to expect that they
would entirely disarm themselves, and renounce the sole expedient
provided by the constitution for insuring to the kingdom a just and
legal administration. In different periods of English story, there
occur instances of their remonstrating with their princes in the freest
manner, and sometimes of their refusing supply when disgusted with
any circumstance of public conduct. It is, however, certain, that this
power, though essential to parliaments, may easily be abused, as well
by the frequency and minuteness of their remonstrances, as by their
intrusion into every part of the king's counsels and determinations.
Under color of advice, they may give disguised orders; and in
complaining of grievances, they may draw to themselves every power of
government. Whatever measure is embraced without consulting them, may
be pronounced an oppression of the people; and, till corrected, they may
refuse the most necessary supplies to their indigent sovereign. From the
very nature of this parliamentary liberty, it is evident that it must
be left unbounded by law; for who can foretell how frequently grievances
may occur, or what part of administration may be affected by them?
From the nature, too, of the human frame, it may be expected, that this
liberty would be exerted in its full extent, and no branch of authority
be allowed to remain unmolested in the hands of the prince; for will the
weak limitations of respect and decorum be sufficient to restrain human
ambition, which so frequently breaks through all the prescriptions of
law and justice?

But here it is observable, that the wisdom of the English constitution,
or rather the concurrence of accidents, has provided, in different
periods, certain irregular checks to this privilege of parliament and
thereby maintained, in some tolerable measure, the dignity and authority
of the crown.

In the ancient constitution, before the beginning of the seve