d the right of the Parliament against the right of the
Nation.

By the appearance which the contest made, Mr. Fox took the hereditary
ground, and Mr. Pitt the Parliamentary ground; but the fact is, they
both took hereditary ground, and Mr. Pitt took the worst of the two.

What is called the Parliament is made up of two Houses, one of which is
more hereditary, and more beyond the control of the Nation than what
the Crown (as it is called) is supposed to be. It is an hereditary
aristocracy, assuming and asserting indefeasible, irrevocable rights
and authority, wholly independent of the Nation. Where, then, was
the merited popularity of exalting this hereditary power over another
hereditary power less independent of the Nation than what itself assumed
to be, and of absorbing the rights of the Nation into a House over which
it has neither election nor control?

The general impulse of the Nation was right; but it acted without
reflection. It approved the opposition 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 u