point of dismissal. It would be beside our purpose to enter into the details of the treaty which constituted the United States, as they were now called, a nation by our formal recognition of their independence. Even in that recognition, which was the most important article of the treaty, no constitutional principle was involved, though it affords the only instance in our history which can seem to throw a doubt on our inheritance of that capacity for government which the Roman poet claimed as, in ancient times, the peculiar attribute of his own countrymen. It presents the only instance of a loss of territory peopled by men who came of our blood, and who still spoke our language. It was a stern and severe lesson; and yet, fraught with discredit and disaster as it was, it nevertheless bore fruit in a later age which we may be excused for regarding as an example of the generally predominating influence of sober practical sense in our countrymen, when not led away by the temporary excitement of passion, as shown in our capacity to take home to ourselves and profit by the teachings of experience. The loss of the American Colonies was caused by the submission of the Parliament and nation to men of theory rather than of practice; ideologists, as Napoleon called them; doctrinaires, to use the modern expression; men who, because Parliament had an abstract right of universal legislation, regarded it as a full justification for insisting on its exercise, without giving a thought to the feelings, or prejudices, or habits of those who might be affected by their measures. Abstractedly considered, Lord Chatham and Lord Camden were undoubtedly wrong in denying the power of Parliament to tax the Colonies; but there was better judgment in their counsels, though founded on false premises, than in those of Grenville and Townsend, though theirs was the more correct view of the constitutional power of legislation. The two peers were wrong in their principle; the two Chancellors of the Exchequer were unwise in their application of their principle; and the practical error was the more disastrous one.
It is now generally admitted that the true statesman-like course toward the Colonies was that adopted by Lord Rockingham and his colleagues in 1765-to avoid weakening the supreme power of Parliament by any disavowal of the right to tax but to avoid imperilling the sovereign authority of the King by a novel exertion of it. As much of our common English law is made up of precedent, so, in a still greater degree, are our feelings and ideas of our rights and privileges regulated by precedent. And we lost America because in 1764 and 1767 neither minister nor Parliament took men's feelings and prejudices into account. The loss of the United States, therefore, was a lesson not undeserved; and by our statesmen since that day it has been taken in the right spirit of profiting by its teaching as a guide to their own conduct. Since that day the enterprise of our people has planted our flag in regions far more distant, and has extended the dominion of our sovereign over provinces far more extensive than those which we then lost. And on some of the administrations of the present reign the duty has fallen of framing schemes of government for those new acquisitions, as also for some of those previously possessed. In how different a spirit from that which actuated the early ministers of George III.[57] those to whom the task was committed by Queen Victoria applied themselves to their task may be seen in a maxim laid down by the present Lord Grey, when he presided at the Colonial Office (1846-1852), that 'the success of free institutions in any country depends far less upon the particular form of those institutions than upon the character of the people on whom they are conferred.' But how he and others in the same office carried out that principle must be reserved for a later chapter.
Besides the numerous motions which were brought forward by the Opposition respecting the continuance and conduct of the war, there were several also which were indirectly prompted by it. The Opposition claimed to be on this subject not only the champions of the real interests of the nation, but also its spokesmen, who expressed the opinions and feelings of all the thinking and independent portion of the people. That their efforts were overborne they attributed to the subservience of the Parliament to the ministers, and of the ministers to the crown.[58] And consequently several motions were made by members of that party, the object of which was, in one way or another, to diminish what they regarded as the undue influence of the crown. In one instance, and that the most successful, a direct denunciation of that influence was employed, but the earlier and more frequent proposals were directed to the purification of the House of Commons, and to the strengthening of its independence. It is remarkable that of these the two which related to a subject of which the Commons are usually most especially and most rightly jealous, the interference of peers in elections, had the worst fortune. In 1780 complaints were made and substantiated that the Duke of Bolton and the Duke of Chandos (who was also Lord-lieutenant of the county) had exerted themselves actively in the last election for Hampshire. And, in support of motions that these peers 'had been guilty of a breach of the privileges of the House, and an infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain,' a case was adduced in which Queen Anne had dismissed the Bishop of Worcester from the office of Almoner for similar interference. Nor did Lord Nugent, a relative of the Duke of Chandos, deny the facts alleged; on the contrary, he avowed them, and adopted a line of defence which many must have thought an aggravation of the charge, since it asserted that to prevent such interference was impossible, and therefore the House would but waste its time in trying. However, on this occasion the House took the view which he thus suggested to it, postponing all farther consideration of the matter for four months; and the charge the Duke of Bolton was shelved in a somewhat similar manner.
Even had these peers and such practices been censured with the very greatest severity, the censures could have had but a very limited effect. But it was on measures of a wider scope, embracing what began to be called a Reform of Parliament, that the more zealous members of the Opposition placed their chief reliance. As far as our records of the debates can be trusted, Lord Chatham, ten years before, had given the first hint of the desirableness of some alteration of the existing system. On one occasion he denounced the small boroughs as 'the rotten part of the constitution,' thus originating the epithet by which they in time came to be generally described; but more usually he disavowed all idea of disfranchising them, propounding rather a scheme for diminishing their importance by a large addition to the county members. However, he never took any steps to carry out his views, thinking, perhaps, that it was not in the Upper House that such a subject should be first broached. But he had not been long in the grave, when a formal motion for a reform of a different kind was brought forward by one of the members for the City of London, Alderman Sawbridge,[59] who, in May, 1780, applied for leave to bring in 'a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments.' His own preference he avowed to be for annual Parliaments; but his suspicion that the House would think such a measure too sweeping had induced him to resolve to content himself with aiming at triennial Parliaments. As leave was refused, the bill proposed to be introduced may, perhaps, be thought disentitled to mention here, were it not that the circumstance that proposals for shortening the duration of Parliaments are still occasionally brought forward seems to warrant an account of a few of the arguments by which those who took the leading parts in the debate which ensued resisted it. The minister, Lord North, declared that the Alderman had misunderstood the views of our ancestors on the subject; as their desire had been, not that Parliament should be elected annually, but that it should sit every year, an end which had now been attained. Fox, on the other hand, while avowing that hitherto he had always opposed similar motions, declared his wish now to see not only triennial but annual Parliaments, as the sole means of lessening the influence of the crown. 'If any of his constituents were to ask him to what our present misfortunes were ascribable, he should say the first cause was the influence of the crown; the second, the influence of the crown; and the third, the influence of the crown.' But it was replied by Burke, who usually exhausted every question he took in hand, that such a bill would rather tend to augment that influence, since 'the crown, by its constant stated power, influence, and revenue, would be able to wear out all opposition at elections; that it would not abate the interest or inclination of ministers to apply that interest to the electors; on the contrary, it would render it more necessary to them, if they desired to have a majority in Parliament, to increase the means of that influence, to redouble their diligence, and to sharpen dexterity in the application. The whole effect of the bill would, therefore, be to remove the application of some part of that influence from the elected to the electors, and farther to strengthen and extend a court interest already great and powerful in boroughs. It must greatly increase the cost of a seat in Parliament; and, if contests were frequent, to many they would become a matter of expense totally ruinous, which no fortunes could bear. The expense of the last general election was estimated at L1,500,000; and he remembered well that several agents for boroughs said to candidates, 'Sir, your election will cost you L3000 if you are independent; but, if the ministry supports you, it may be done for L2000, and even less.'' And he adduced the case of Ireland, where formerly, when 'a Parliament sat for the King's life, the ordinary charge for a seat was L1500; but now, when it sat for eight years, four sessions, the charge was L2500 and upward.' Such a change as was proposed would cause 'triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, etc., and invigorate personal hatreds that would never be allowed to soften. It would even make the member himself more corrupt, by increasing his dependence on those who could best support him at elections. It would wreck the fortunes of those who stood on their own private means. It would make the electors more venal, and injure the whole body of the people who, whether they have votes or not, are concerned in elections.' Finally, it would greatly impair the proper authority of the House itself. 'It would deprive it of all power and dignity; and a House of Commons without power and without dignity, either in itself or its members, is no
