ant;
and that it is from the silent and unobserved operation of causes set
at work for different purposes, that the greatest revolutions take
their rise. 'Thus,' he says, 'when Elizabeth and her immediate
successor applied themselves to the encouragement and regulation of
trade by many wise laws, they knew not that, together with wealth and
industry, they were diffusing a consciousness of strength and
independency which could not long endure, under the forms of a mixed
government, the dominion of arbitrary princes.' And again: 'When it was
debated whether the Mutiny Act--the law by which the army is governed
and maintained--should be temporal or perpetual, little else probably
occurred to the advocates of an annual bill, than the expediency of
retaining a control over the most dangerous prerogative of the
Crown--the direction and command of a standing army; whereas, in its
effect, this single reservation has altered the whole frame and quality
of the British constitution. For since, in consequence of the military
system which prevails in neighbouring and rival nations, as well as on
account of the internal exigencies of Government, a standing army
has become essential to the safety and administration of the empire, it
enables Parliament, by discontinuing this necessary provision, so to
enforce its resolutions upon any other subject, as to render the
king's dissent to a law which has received the approbation of both
Houses, too dangerous an experiment any longer to be advised.' And
thus the illustration of the principle runs on. We question, however,
whether there be any illustration among them more striking than that
indirect consequence of the Reform Bill on the tenantry of England to
which we refer. The provision which conferred a vote on the
tenant-at-will, abrogated leases, and made the tiller of the soil a
vassal. The farmer who precariously holds his farm from year to year
cannot, of course, be expected to sink so much capital in the soil, in
the hope of a distant and uncertain return, as the lessee certain of a
possession for a specified number of years; but some capital he must
sink in it. It is impossible, according to the modern system, or indeed
any system of husbandry, that all the capital committed to the earth
in winter and spring should be resumed in the following summer and
autumn. A considerable overplus must inevitably remain to be gathered
up in future seasons; and this overplus remainder, in the case