quently they return,
the more they will harass private independence; the more generally men
will be compelled to fly to the settled systematic interest of
government, and to the resources of a boundless civil list. Certainly
something may be done, and ought to be done, towards lessening that
influence in elections; and this will be necessary upon a plan either
of longer or shorter duration of Parliament. But nothing can so
perfectly remove the evil, as not to render such contentions, too
frequently repeated, utterly ruinous, first to independence of fortune,
and then to independence of spirit. As I am only giving an opinion on
this point, and not at all debating it in an adverse line, I hope I may
be excused in another observation. With great truth I may aver, that I
never remember to have talked on this subject with any man much
conversant with public business, who considered short Parliaments as a
real improvement of the constitution. Gentlemen, warm in a popular
cause, are ready enough to attribute all the declarations of such
persons to corrupt motives. But the habit of affairs, if, on one hand,
it tends to corrupt the mind, furnishes it, on the other, with the means
of better information. The authority of such persons will always have
some weight. It may stand upon a par with the speculations of those who
are less practised in business; and who, with perhaps purer intentions,
have not so effectual means of judging. It is besides an effect of
vulgar and puerile malignity to imagine, that every statesman is of
course corrupt; and that his opinion, upon every constitutional point,
is solely formed upon some sinister interest.

The next favorite remedy is a place-bill. The same principle guides in
both; I mean, the opinion which is entertained by many, of the
infallibility of laws and regulations, in the cure of public distempers.
Without being as unreasonably doubtful as many are unwisely confident, I
will only say, that this also is a matter very well worthy of serious
and mature reflection. It is not easy to foresee, what the effect would
be, of disconnecting with Parliament the greatest part of those who hold
civil employments, and of such mighty and important bodies as the
military and naval establishments. It were better, perhaps, that they
should have a corrupt interest in the forms of the constitution, than
that they should have none at all. This is a question altogether
different from the disqualification of a