Polybius observes, that of all the mixed governments ever known to him, that of Lycurgus alone was the result of cool reason and long study. The form of the Roman republick, on the contrary, was the production of necessity. For the Romans came at the knowledge of the most proper remedies for all their political evils, not by dint of reasoning, but by the deep felt experience of the many and dangerous calamities, with which they had so long and so often struggled. I do not in the least doubt, but that excellent form of government established by our rude Gothick ancestors, wherever their arms prevailed, arose from the same cause, necessity founded upon experience. Every mixed government therefore, where the three powers are duly balanced, has a resource within itself against all those political evils to which it is liable. By this resource, I mean, that joint coercive force, which any two of these powers are able to exercise over the other. But as nothing but necessity can authorize the exercise of this power, so it must be strictly regulated by those principles, on which the government was founded. For if by an undue exercise of this power, any one of the three should be diminished, or annihilated, the balance would be destroyed, and the constitution alter proportionally for the worse. Thus in Denmark, where the monarchy was limited and elective, the people, exasperated by the oppressions of the nobility, who had assumed an almost despotick power, out of a principle of revenge threw their whole weight into the regal scale. Frederick the third, (the then reigning monarch) strengthened by this accession of power and the assistance of the people, compelled the nobility to surrender their power and privileges. In consequence of this fatal step taken by the people, the monarchy, in the year 1660, became absolute and hereditary. Lord Molesworth observes upon this occasion, in his account of Denmark, that the people of Denmark have since felt by sad experience, that the little finger of an absolute prince is heavier than the loins of a hundred nobles.

The late revolution of government in Sweden, though arising from the same principles, took a very different turn. Charles the twelfth, brave even to enthusiasm, and as insatiably fond of glory as the ambitious Alexander, had quite tired out and exhausted his people, by his destructive expeditions. But when that fortunate shot from the town of Frederickshal gave repose to his own country as well as to a great part of Europe, the states of Sweden, no longer awed by a warlike monarch (who had usurped a despotick power) and a veteran army, again resumed the exercise of their own inherent powers. Stimulated by a desire of vengeance for the evils they had already suffered, and the fear of smarting again under the same evils, they beheaded Gortz, the minister of their late monarch’s oppressions, and left the crown no more than the bare shadow of authority. For though they continued the monarchy for life and hereditary, yet they imposed such rigid terms upon their succeeding kings, as reduced them to a state of dependance and impotence nearly equal to a doge of Genoa or Venice. We see, in both these instances, the revolution in government effected by the union of two powers of the government against the third. The catastrophe indeed in both nations was different, because that third power which was obnoxious to the other two, was different in each nation. In the former of these instances, the people, fired with resentment against the nobility, and instigated by secret emissaries of the crown, blindly gave up their whole power to the king, which enabled him to deprive the nobility (the second estate) of their share of power, and bring the whole to centre in the crown. Thus the government in Denmark was changed into absolute monarchy. In the latter, the senate took the lead during the interregnum, which followed the death of Charles, and changed the government into aristocracy. For though the outward form of government indeed is preserved, yet the essence no longer remains. The monarchy is merely titular, but the whole power is absorbed by the senate, consequently the government is strictly aristocratick. For the people were by no means gainers by the change, but remain in the same state of servitude, which they so much complained of before. Thus in all revolutions in mixed governments, where the union of two injured powers is animated by the spirit of patriotism, and directed by that salutary rule before laid down, which forbids us to destroy, and only enjoins us to reduce the third offending power within its proper bounds, the balance of government will be restored upon its first principles, and the change will be for the better. Thus when the arbitrary and insupportable encroachments of the crown under James the second, aimed so visibly at the subversion of our constitution, and the introduction of absolute monarchy; necessity authorized the lords and commons (the other two powers) to have recourse to the joint exercise of that restraining power, which is the inherent resource of all mixed governments. But as the exercise of this power was conducted by patriotism, and regulated by the above-mentioned rule, the event was the late happy revolution; by which the power of the crown was restrained within its proper limits, and the government resettled upon its true basis, as nearly as the genius of the times would admit of. But if the passions prevail, and ambition lurks beneath the mask of patriotism, the change will inevitably be for the worse. Because the restitution of the balance of government, which alone can authorize the exercise of the two joint powers against the third, will be only the pretext, whilst the whole weight and fury of the incensed people will be directed solely to the ends of ambition. Thus if the regal power should be enabled to take the lead by gaining over the whole weight of the people, the change will terminate in absolute monarchy; which so lately happened in Denmark, as it had happened before in almost all the old Gothick governments. If the aristocratick power, actuated by that ambition, which (an extreme few instances excepted) seems inseparable from the regal, should be able to direct the joint force of the people against the crown, the change will be to an aristocratick government, like the present state of Sweden, or the government of Holland, from the death of William the third, to the late revolution in favour of the stadtholder. If the power of the people impelled to action by any cause, either real or imaginary, should be able to subvert the other two, the consequence will be, that anarchy, which Polybius terms, the ferine and savage dominion of the people.[363] This will continue until some able and daring spirit, whose low birth or fortune precluded him from rising to the chief dignities of the state by any other means, puts himself at the head of the populace inured to live by plunder and rapine, and drawing the whole power to himself, erects a tyranny upon the ruins of the former government; or until the community, tired out and impatient under their distracted situation, bring back the government into its old channel. This is what Polybius terms the circumvolution of governments;[364] or the rotation of governments within themselves until they return to the same point. The fate of the Grecian and Roman republicks terminated in the former of these events. The distracted state of government in this nation, from 1648, to the restoration of Charles the second, ended happily in the latter, though the nation for some years experienced the former of these catastrophes under the government of Cromwell.

I have here given a short, but plain general analysis of government, founded upon experience drawn from historical truths, and adapted to the general capacity of my countrymen. But if any one desires to be acquainted with the philosophy of government, and to investigate the ratio and series of all these mutations, or revolutions of governments within themselves, I must (with Polybius) refer him to Plato’s republick.

The plan of a good and happy government, which Plato lays down, by the mouth of Socrates, in the former part of that work, is wholly ideal, and impossible to be executed, unless mankind could be new moulded. But the various revolutions of government (described above) which he treats of in the latter part, was founded upon facts, facts which he himself had been eyewitness to in the numerous republicks of Greece and Sicily, and had fatally experienced in his own country Athens. The divine philosopher, in that part of his admirable treatise, traces all these mutations up to their first source, “the intemperance of the human passions,” and accounts for their various progress, effects and consequences, from the various combinations of the same perpetually conflicting passions. His maxims are founded solely upon the sublimest truths, his allusions beautiful and apposite, and his instructions alike applicable to publick or private life, equally capable of forming the statesman or the man.

CHAPTER IX.
OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

Xenophon observes,[365] that if the Athenians, together with the sovereignty of the seas, had enjoyed the advantageous situation of an island, they might with great ease have given law to their neighbours. For the same fleets which enabled them to ravage the seacoasts of the continent at discretion, could equally have protected their own country from the insults of their enemies as long as they maintained their naval superiority. One would imagine, says the great Montesquieu,[366] that Xenophon in this passage was speaking of the island of Britain. The judicious and glorious exertion of our naval force under the present ministry, so strongly confirms Xenophon’s remark, that one would imagine their measures were directed, as well as dictated, by his consummate genius. We are masters both of those natural and acquired advantages, which Xenophon required to make his countrymen invincible. We daily feel their importance more and more, and must be sensible that our liberty, our happiness, and our very existence as a people, depend upon our naval superiority supported by our military virtue and publick spirit. Nothing, humanly speaking, but luxury, effeminacy and corruption, can ever deprive us of this envied superiority. What an accumulated load of guilt therefore must lie upon any future administration, who, to serve the ends of faction, should ever precipitate Britain from her present height down to the abject state of Athens, by encouraging those evils to blast all publick virtue in their unlimited progress.

As Britain is so confessedly superior to all the maritime powers of the ancients by the advantages of situation; so the British constitution, as settled at the revolution, is demonstrably far preferable to, and better formed for duration, than any of the most celebrated republicks of antiquity. As the executive power is vested in a single person, who is deemed the first branch in the legislature; and as that power is for life and hereditary; our constitution is neither liable to those frequent convulsions, which attended the annual elections of consuls, nor to that solecism in politicks, two supreme heads of one body for life, and hereditary, which was the great defect in the Spartan institution. As the house of commons, elected by, and out of the body of the people, is vested with all the power annexed to the tribunitial office amongst the Romans; the people enjoy every advantage which ever accrued to the Roman people by that institution, whilst the nation is secure from all those calamitous seditions, in which every factious tribune could involve his country at pleasure. And as all our questions in parliament are decided by a majority of voices; we can never be subject to that capital defect in the Carthaginian constitution, where the single veto, of one discontented senator, referred the decision of the most important affair to a wrong-headed, ungovernable populace. The house of peers is placed in the middle of the balance, to prevent the regal scale from preponderating to despotism or tyranny; or the democratical to anarchy and its consequences. The equitable intent of our laws is plainly calculated, like those of Solon, to preserve the liberty and property of every individual in the community; and to restrain alike the richest or the poorest, the greatest or the meanest, from doing or suffering wrong from each other. This is the wise and salutary plan of power established at the revolution. Would we always adhere steadily to this plan, and preserve the just æquilibrium, as delivered down to us by our great ancestors, our constitution would remain firm and unshaken to the end of time.