tion on the part of government.
If the king's servants will not permit a constitutional question to
be decided on according to the forms, and on the principles of the
constitution, it must then be decided in some other manner; and rather
than it should be given up--rather than the nation should surrender
their birthright to a despotic minister, I hope, my lords, old as I am,
I shall see the question brought to issue, and fairly tried between the
people and the government." The Earl of Chatham next offered some severe
remarks on the surrender of Corsica, the augmentation of troops
in Ireland, the arrears of the civil list, the waste of the public
revenues, and the evils arising from the riches of Asia. "The importers
of foreign gold," said he, "have forced their way into parliament by
such a torrent of private corruption, as no private hereditary fortune
could resist." He then offered several suggestions on the propriety of
a reform in parliament--suggestions, he observed, not crude and
undigested, but ripe and well-considered, as the subject had long
occupied his attention. His scheme was, not that the rotten boroughs
should be disfranchised, though he considered them as the rotten part
of the constitution; nor that the unrepresented towns should be allowed
members, though he admitted that in them great part of the strength and
vigour of the constitution resided--but that each county should elect
three members instead of two, he considering that the knights of the
shires approached the nearest to the constitutional representation
of the country, because they represent the soil. At the same time, he
recommended that the city representatives should be augmented, and that
in increasing the number of representatives for the English counties,
the shires of Scotland should be allowed an equal privilege, in order to
prevent any jealousy which might arise from an apparent violation of the
union. In concluding his speech, he proclaimed his coalition with the
Marquess of Rockingham, whom, on a previous occasion he had overthrown
as an incapable statesman; justifying the union formed between them, on
the grounds that it was formed for the good of the country; or, in his
own words, "to save the state."

It must be admitted that the scheme of parliamentary reform divulged by
the Earl of Chatham was by no means enlightened or impartial. In it no
allowance was to be made for the growing importance of the commercial
and manufacturing i