interests which makes the Houses of Parliament a mutual
support to each other. Mr. Fox and the Friends of the People are not so
ignorant as not to know that peers do not interfere in elections as
peers, but as men of property; they well know that the House of Lords
is by itself the feeblest part of the Constitution; they know that the
House of Lords is supported only by its connections with the crown and
with the House of Commons, and that without this double connection the
Lords could not exist a single year. They know that all these parts of
our Constitution, whilst they are balanced as opposing interests, are
also connected as friends; otherwise nothing but confusion could be the
result of such a complex Constitution. It is natural, therefore, that
they who wish the common destruction of the whole and of all its parts
should contend for their total separation. But as the House of Commons
is that link which connects both the other parts of the Constitution
(the Crown and the Lords) _with the mass of the people_, it is to that
link (as it is natural enough) that their incessant attacks are
directed. That artificial representation of the people being once
discredited and overturned, all goes to pieces, and nothing but a plain
_French_ democracy or arbitrary monarchy can possibly exist.

43. Some of these gentlemen who have attacked the House of Commons lean
to a representation of the people by the head,--that is, to _individual
representation_. None of them, that I recollect, except Mr. Fox,
directly rejected it. It is remarkable, however, that he only rejected
it by simply declaring an opinion. He let all the argument go against
his opinion. All the proceedings and arguments of his reforming friends
lead to individual representation, and to nothing else. It deserves to
be attentively observed, _that this individual representation is the
only plan of their reform which has been explicitly proposed_. In the
mean time, the conduct of Mr. Fox appears to be far more inexplicable,
on any good ground, than theirs, who propose the individual
representation; for he neither proposes anything, nor even suggests that
he has anything to propose, in lieu of the present mode of constituting
the House of Commons; on the contrary, he declares against all the plans
which have yet been suggested, either from himself or others: yet, thus
unprovided with any plan whatsoever, he pressed forward this unknown
reform with all possible warmth; a