n made to the right set up by
Mr. Fox, without perceiving that Mr. Pitt was supporting another
indefeasible right more remote from the Nation, in opposition to it.

With respect to the House of Commons, it is elected but by a small part
of the Nation; but were the election as universal as taxation, which it
ought to be, it would still be only the organ of the Nation, and cannot
possess inherent rights.--When the National Assembly of France resolves
a matter, the resolve is made in right of the Nation; but Mr. Pitt, on
all national questions, so far as they refer to the House of Commons,
absorbs the rights of the Nation into the organ, and makes the organ
into a Nation, and the Nation itself into a cypher.

In a few words, the question on the Regency was a question of a million
a-year, which is appropriated to the executive department: and Mr. Pitt
could not possess himself of any management of this sum, without setting
up the supremacy of Parliament; and when this was accomplished, it was
indifferent who should be Regent, as he must be Regent at his own cost.
Among the curiosities which this contentious debate afforded, was that
of making the Great Seal into a King, the affixing of which to an act
was to be royal authority. If, therefore, Royal Authority is a Great
Seal, it consequently is in itself nothing; and a good Constitution
would be of infinitely more value to the Nation than what the three
Nominal Powers, as they now stand, are worth.

The continual use of the word Constitution in the English Parliament
shows there is none; and that the whole is merely a form of government
without a Constitution, and constituting itself with what powers it
pleases. If there were a Constitution, it certainly could be referred
to; and the debate on any constitutional point would terminate by
producing the Constitution. One member says this is Constitution, and
another says that is Constitution--To-day it is one thing; and to-morrow
something else--while the maintaining of the debate proves there is
none. Constitution is now the cant word of Parliament, tuning itself
to the ear of the Nation. Formerly it was the universal supremacy of
Parliament--the omnipotence of Parliament: But since the progress of
Liberty in France, those phrases have a despotic harshness in their
note; and the English Parliament have catched the fashion from
the National Assembly, but without the substance, of speaking of
Constitution.

As the present ge