speak fully on a future occasion. Of the for-
mer, many of our readers may think we have,
on former occasions, said at least enough.
Our zeal in that cause, we know, has been
made matter of wonder, and even of derision,
among certain persons who value themselves
on the character of practical politicians and
men of the world; and we have had the satis-
faction of listening to various witty sneers on
the mixed simplicity and extravagance of
supposing, that the kingdom of the Poles was
to be re-established by a dissertation in an
English journal. It would perhaps be enough
to state, that, independent of any view to an
immediate or practical result in other regions,
it is of some consequence to keep the obser-
vation of England alive, and its feelings awake,
upon a subject of this importance: But we
must beg leave to add, that such dissertations
are humbly conceived to be among the legiti-
mate means by which the English public both
instructs and expresses itself; and that the
opinion of the English public is still allowed
to have weight with its government; which
again cannot well be supposed to be altogether
without influence in the councils of its allies.
Whatever becomes of Poland, it is most
material, we think, that the people of this
country should judge soundly, and feel right-
ly, on a matter that touches on principles of But though these are the considerations by
such general application. But every thing which the feelings of private individuals are
that has passed since the publication of our most naturally affected, it should never be
former remarks, combines to justify what we forgotten, that all the principles on which the
then stated; and to encourage us to make great fabric of national independence con-
louder and more energetic appeals to the jus- fessedly rests in Europe, are involved in the
tice and prudence and magnanimity of the decision of this question; and that no one
parties concerned in this transaction. The nation can be secure in its separate existence,
words and the deeds of Alexander that have, if all the rest do not concur in disavowing
since that period, passed into the page of the maxims which were acted upon in the
history-the principles he has solemnly pro- partition of Poland. It is not only mournful
fessed, and the acts by which he has sealed to see the scattered and bleeding members of
that profession-entitle us to expect from him that unhappy state still palpitating and ago-
a strain of justice and generosity, which vul- nising on the spot where it lately stood erect
gar politicians may call romantic if they please, in youthful vigour and beauty; but it is unsafe
but which all men of high principles and en- to breathe the noxious vapours which this
larged understandings will feel to be not more melancholy spectacle exhales. The whole.
heroic than judicious. While Poland remains some neighbourhood is poisoned by their dif
oppressed and discontented, the peace of Eu- fusion; and every independence within their
rope will always be at the mercy of any am-range, sickens and is endangered by the con-
bitions or intriguing power that may think fittagion.

to rouse its vast and warlike population with
the vain promise of independence; while it is
perfectly manifest that those, by whom alone
that promise could be effectually kept, would
gain prodigiously, both in security and in sub-
stantial influence, by its faithful performance.
It is not, however, for the mere name of
independence, nor for the lost glories of an
ancient and honourable existence, that the
people of Poland are thus eager to array
themselves in any desperate strife of which
this may be proclaimed as the prize. We
have shown, in our last number, the substan-
tial and intolerable evils which this extinction
of their national dignity-this sore and un-
merited wound to their national pride, has
necessarily occasioned: And thinking, as we
do, that a people without the feelings of na-
tional pride and public duty must be a people
without energy and without enjoyments, we
apprehend it to be at any rate indisputable, in
the present instance, that the circumstances
which have dissolved their political being,
have struck also at the root of their individual
happiness and prosperity; and that it is not
merely the unjust destruction of an ancient
kindom that we lament, but the condemnation
of fifteen millions of human beings to un-
profitable and unparalleled misery.

(February, 1811.)

Speech of the Right Hon. William Windham, in the House of Commons, May 26, 1809, on Mr. Curwen's Bill, "for better securing the Independence and Purity of Parliament, by preventing the procuring or obtaining of Seats by corrupt Practices." 8vo. pp. 43, London: 1810.*

MR. WINDHAM, the most high-minded and in selling seats in parliament openly to the Incorruptible of living men, can see no harm highest bidder, or for excluding public trusts

The passing of the Reform Bill has antiquated ponents of reform principles-which are applicable Anuch of the discussion in this article, as originally to all times, and all conditions of society; and of written; and a considerable portion of it is now, for which recent events and discussions seem to show this reason, omitted. But it also contains answers that the present generation may still need to be reto the systematic apologists of corruption, and op-minded.

pernicious and reprehensible cf all political abuses.

The natural influence of property is that which results spontaneously from its ordinary use and expenditure, and cannot well be mis understood. That a man who spends a large income in the place of his residence-who subscribes handsomely for building bridges, hospitals, and assembly-rooms, and generally to all works of public charity or accommodation in the neighbourhood-and who, more over, keeps the best table for the gentry, and has the largest accounts with the tradesmen

generally from the money market; and is of opinion that political influence arising from property should be disposed of like other property. It will be readily supposed that we do not assent to any part of this doctrine; and indeed we must beg leave to say, that to us it is no sort of argument for the sale of seats, to contend that such a transference is no worse than the possession of the property transferred; and to remind us, that he who objects to men selling their influence, must be against their having it to sell. We are decidedly against their having it-to sell! and, as to what is here considered as the-will, without thinking or caring about the necessary influence of property over elections, we should think there could be no great difficulty in drawing the line between the legitimate, harmless, and even beneficial use of property, even as connected with elections; and its direct employment for the purchase of parliamentary influence. Almost all menindeed, we think, all men-admit, that some line is to be drawn-that the political influence of property should be confined to that which is essential to its use and enjoyment; -and that penalties should be inflicted, when it is directly applied to the purchase of votes; though that is perhaps the only case in which the law can interfere vindictively, without introducing far greater evils than those which Fate seeks to remedy.

To those who are already familiar with the facts and the reasonings that bear upon this great question, these brief suggestions will probably be sufficient; but there are many to whom the subject will require a little more explanation; and for whose use, at all events, the argument must be a little more opened up and expanded.

matter, acquire more influence, and find more people ready to oblige him, than a poorer man, of equal virtue and talents-is a fact, which we are as little inclined to deplore, as to call in question. Neither does it cost us any pang to reflect, that, if such a man was desirous of representing the borough in which he resided, or of having it represented by his son or his brother, or some dear and intimate friend, his recommendation would go much farther with the electors than a respectable certificate of extraordinary worth and abilities in an opposing candidate.

Such an influence as this, it would evidently be quite absurd for any legislature to think of interdicting, or even for any reformer to attempt to discredit. In the first place, because it is founded in the very nature of men and of human affairs, and could not possibly be prevented, or considerably weakened, by any thing short of an universal regeneration; secondly, because, though originating from property, it does by no means imply, either the baseness of venality, or the guilt of corruption; but rests infinitely more upon feelings If men were perfectly wise and virtuous, of vanity, and social instinctive sympathy, they would stand in no need either of Govern- than upon any consciousness of dependence, ment or of Representatives; and, therefore, or paltry expectation of personal emolument; if they do need them, it is quite certain that and, thirdly, because, taking men as they ac their choice will not be influenced by con- tually are, this mixed feeling is, upon the siderations of duty or wisdom alone. We whole, both a safer and a better feeling than may assume it as an axiom, therefore, how- the greater part of those, to the influence of ever the purists may be scandalised, that, which they would be abandoned, if this should even in political elections, some other feel- be destroyed. If the question were, always, ings will necessarily have play; and that pas- whether a man of wealth and family, or a man sions, and prejudices, and personal interests, of sense and virtue, should have the greatest will always interfere, to a greater or less ex-influence, it would no doubt be desirable that tent, with the higher dictates of patriotism the preponderance should be given to moral and philanthropy. Of these sinister motives, individual interest, of course, is the strongest and most steady; and wealth, being its most common and appropriate object, it is natural to expect that the possession of property should bestow some political influence. The question, therefore, is, whether this influence can ever be safe or tolerable-or whether it be possible to mark the limits at which it becomes so pernicious as to justify legislative coercion. Now, we are so far from thinking, with Mr. Windham, that there is no room for any distinction in this matter, that we are inclined, on the whole, to be of opinion, that what we would term the natural and inevitable influence of property in elections, is not only safe, but salutary; while its artificial and corrupt influence is among the most

and intellectual merit. But this is by no means the true state of the contest:-and when the question is between the influence of property and the influence of intriguing ambition and turbulent popularity, we own that we are glad to find the former most frequently prevalent. In ordinary life, and in common affairs, this natural and indirect influence of property is vast and infallible, even upon the best and most enlightened part of the community; and nothing can conduce so surely to the stability and excellence of a political constitution, as to make it rest upon the general principles that regulate the conduct of the better part of the individuals who live under it, and to attach them to their government by the same feelings which insure their affec tion or submission in their private capacity

There could be no security, in short, either sequence of the extension of their possessions, for property, or for any thing else, in a coun- and the decline of the population. Consider. try where the possession of property did noted in this light, it does not appear that they bestow some political influence.

can, with any propriety, be regarded either as This, then, is the natural influence of pro- scenes of criminal corruption, or as examples perty; which we would not only tolerate, but of the reprehensible influence of property. If encourage. We must now endeavour to ex- a place which still retains (however absurdly) plain that corrupt or artificial influence, which the right of sending members to parliament, we conceive it to be our duty by all means to comes to be entirely depopulated, like Old resist and repress. Under this name, we would Sarum, it is impossible to suppose that the comprehend all wilful and direct employment nomination of its members should vest in any of property to purchase or obtain political one but the Proprietor of the spot to which power, in whatever form the transaction might the right is attached: and, even where the be embodied: but, with reference to the more decay is less complete than in this instance, common cases, we shall exemplify only in the still, if any great family has gradually acquir instances of purchasing votes by bribery, ored the greater part of the property from which holding the property of those votes distinct the right of voting is derived, it is equally from any other property, and selling and trans- impossible to hold that there is any thing cor ferring this for a price, like any other market- rupt or reprehensible in its availing itself of able commodity. All such practices are stig- this influence. Cases of this sort, therefore, matized, in common language, and in common we are inclined to consider as cases of the feelings, as corrupt and discreditable; and fair influence of property; and though we the slightest reflection upon their principles admit them to be both contradictory to the and their consequences, will show, that while general scheme of the Constitution, and subthey tend to debase the character of all who versive of some of its most important princiare concerned in them, they lead directly to ples, we think they are to be regarded as flaws the subversion of all that is valuable in a and irregularities brought on by time and the representative system of government. That course of events, rather than as abuses introthey may, in some cases, be combined with duced by the vices and corruptions of men. that indirect and legitimate influence of pro- The remedy-and we certainly think a very perty of which we have just been speaking, obvious and proper remedy-would be, to and, in others, be insidiously engrafted upon take the right of election from all places so it, it is impossible to deny ; but that they are small and insignificant as to have thus be clearly distinguishable from the genuine fruits come, in a great measure, the property of an of that influence, both in their moral character individual-not to rail at the individual who and their political effects, we conceive to be avails himself of the influence inseparable equally indisputable. from such property-or to dream of restraining him in its exercise, by unjust penalties and impossible regulations.

Upon the subject of direct bribery to inividual voters, indeed, we do not think it necessary to say any thing. The law, and the The great evil, however, is in the other defeeling of all mankind have marked that prac-[scription of boroughs-those that are held by tice with reprobation: and even Mr. Windham, in the wantonness of his controversial scepticism, does not pretend to say, that the law or the feeling is erroneous, or that it would not be better that both should, if possible, be made still stronger than they are.

Setting this aside, however, the great practical evils that are supposed to result from the influence of property in the elections of this country, are, 1st, that the representation of certain boroughs is entirely, necessarily and perpetually, at the disposal of certain families, so as to be familiarly considered as a part of their rightful property; and, 2dly, that certain other boroughs are held and managed by corrupt agents and jobbers, for the express purpose of being sold for a price in ready money, either through the intervention of the Treasury, or directly to the candidate. That both these are evils and deformities in our system of representation, we readily admit; though by no means to the same extent, leading to the same effects, or produced by the operation of the same causes.

With regard to the boroughs that are permanently in possession of certain great proprietors, these are, for the most part, such small or decayed places, as have fallen, almost insensibly, under their control, in con

agents or jobbers, by a very different tenure from that of great proprietors and benefactors, and are regularly disposed of by them, at every election, for a price paid down, either through the mediation of the ministry, or without any such mediation: a part of this price being notoriously applied by such agents in direct bribes to individual voters-and the remainder taken to themselves as the lawful profits of the transaction. Now, without going into any sort of detail, we think we might at once venture to ask, whether it be possible for any man to shut his eyes upon the individual infamy and the public hazard that are involv ed in these last-mentioned proceedings, or for one moment to confound them, even in his imagination, with the innocent and salutary influence that is inseparable from the possession and expenditure of large property? The differ ence between them, is not less than between the influence which youth and manly beauty, aided by acts of generosity and proofs of honourable intentions may attain over an object of affection, and the control that may be ac quired by the arts of a hateful procuress, and by her transferred to an object of natural dis gust and aversion. The one is founded upon principles which, if they are not the most lofty or infallible, are still among the most

by whom the frame of our constitution was laid; and it is confessedly a perversion and abuse of a system, devised and established for very opposite purposes. Let any man ask himself, whether such a scheme of representation, as is now actually in practice in many

been intended by those who laid the foundations of our free constitution, or reared upon them the proud fabric of our liberties? Or let him ask himself, whether, if we were now

amiable that belong to our imperfect nature, and leads to consequences eminently favourable to the harmony and stability of our social institutions; while the other can only be obtained by working with the basest instruments on the basest passions; and tends directly to sap the foundations of private honour and pub-parts of this country, can be supposed to have lic freedom, and to dissolve the kindly cement by which nature herself has knit society together, in the bonds of human sympathy, and mutual trust and dependence. To say that both sorts of influence are derived from pro-devising a system of representation for such a perty, and are therefore to be considered as country as England, there is any human being identical, is a sophism scarcely more ingeni- who would recommend the adoption of the ous, than that which would confound the oc- system that is practically established among cupations of the highwayman and the honour- us at this moment,-a system under which able merchant, because the object of both was fifty or sixty members should be returned by gain; or which should assume the philoso- twenty or thirty paltry and beggarly hamlets, phical principle, that all voluntary actions are dignified with the name of boroughs; while dictated by a view to ultimate gratification, in twenty or thirty great and opulent towns had order to prove that there was no distinction no representation;-and where upwards of a between vice and virtue; and that the felon, hundred more publicly bought their seats, who was led to execution amidst the execra- partly by a promise of indiscriminate support tions of an indignant multitude, was truly as to the minister, and partly by a sum paid meritorious as the patriot, to whom his grate-down to persons who had no natural influence ful country decreed unenvied honours for its deliverance from tyranny. The truth is, that there is nothing more dangerous than those metaphysical inquiries into the ultimate constituents of merit or delinquency; and that, in every thing that is connected with practice, and especially with public conduct, no wise man will ever employ such an analytical process to counteract the plain intimations of conscience and common sense, unless for the purpose of confounding an antagonist, or perplexing a discussion, to the natural result of which he is unfriendly on other principles.

But if the practices to which we are alluding be clearly base and unworthy in the eyes of all upright and honourable men, and most pregnant with public danger in the eyes of all thinking and intelligent men, it must appear still more strange to find them defended on the score of their Antiquity, than on that of their supposed affinity to practices that are held to be innocent. Yet the old cry of Innovation! has been raised, with more than usual vehemence, against those who offer the most cautious hints for their correction; and even Mr. Windham has not disdained to seek some aid to his argument from a misapplication of the sorry commonplaces about the antiquity and beauty of our constitution, and the hazard of meddling at all with that under which we have so long enjoyed so much glory and happiness. Of the many good answers that may be made to all arguments of this character, we shall content ourselves with one, which seems sufficiently conclusive and simple.

The abuses, of which we complain, are not old, but recent; and those who seek to correct them, are not innovating upon the constitution, but seeking to prevent innovation. The practice of jobbing in boroughs was scarcely known at all in the beginning of the last century; and was not systematized, nor carried to any very formidable extent, till within the last forty years. At all events, it most eertainly was not in the contemplation of those

over the electors, and controlled them notoriously, either by direct bribery, or as the agents of ministerial corruption? If it be clear, however, that such a state of things is in itself indefensible, it is still clearer that it is not the state of things which is required by the true principles of the constitution; that, in point of fact, it neither did nor could exist at the time when that constitution was established; and that its correction would be no innovation on that constitution, but a beneficial restoration of it, both in principle and in practice.

If some of the main pillars of our mansion have been thrown down, is it a dangerous innovation to rear them up again? If the roof has grown too heavy for the building, by recent and injudicious superstructures, is it an innovation, if we either take them down, or strengthen the supports upon which they depend? If the waste of time, and the elements, have crumbled away a part of the foundation, does it show a disregard to the safety of the whole pile, if we widen the basis upon which it rests, and endeavour to place it upon deeper and firmer materials? If the rats have eaten a way into the stores and the cellars; or if knavish servants have opened private and unauthorised communications in the lower parts of the fabric, does it indeed indicate a disposition to impair the comfort and security of the abode, that we are anxious to stop up those holes, and to build across those new and suspicious approaches?—Is it not obvious, in short, in all such cases, that the only true innovators are Guilt and Time; and that they who seek to repair what time has wasted; and to restore what guilt has destroyed, are still more unequivocally the enemies of innovation, than of abuse? Those who are most aware of the importance of re form, are also most aware of the hazards of any theoretical or untried change; and, while they strictly confine their efforts to the restitu tion of what all admit to have been in the