sway in certain counties, and more time is required to fully test the policy of the new changes made in the Irish system of elections. Such is the mode in which the House of Commons is composed, and from the character of the electors in the boroughs, it is obvious that it is no difficult matter for a combination of men in the position of the English Peers, to obtain the control of that body. It is equally clear, that from its power as a co-ordinate branch of the government, powerfully influencing public opinion and holding the purse strings of the nation, it will amply repay any expenditure which secures a majority of the house.

All the interests connected with, or requiring the aid or countenance of the government, seek to be represented in the lower house. Among these interests, the Peerage stands preeminent, and that body, either by the nominees of Peers owning boroughs, or by their relatives and connexions, representing counties, is represented by more than one half of the House. The next prominent interest to that of the Peerage, with which, however, it is intimately connected, is the East India interest.

This representation is not of the natives of India, nor of the English residents in Calcutta or its dependencies; but merely of the India Company and the principal proprietors. In the House chosen upon the death of George the 4th, there were no less than 61 members, who were directly interested in the Company: i. e. Ten Directors returned from 8

boroughs, and one Scotch county and 51 proprietors,-28 of whom were returned from proprietary boroughs. These members possessed 100 votes at the India house, estimated to be worth £2,200 each, and the directors were enabled by the annual appointments in their gift, to bring a patronage of the enormous amount of £250,000 per annum to bear upon the votes of the house, independent of the local patronage of the India house and that arising from the contracts made under their direction. Besides these, there were 15 members, who were retired servants of the Company,-6 of whom enjoyed pensions of more than £1,000 each.

The East India Company, must not, however, be regarded as entirely independent of, and as acting only upon the government. It is connected with the government, and like that is used for the benefit of the Peerage. Seventeen of the Peers possess thirtyone votes at the India house, and three of these noble proprietors control 8 votes in the House of Commons.

The East India interests although for some purposes, distinct, consequently forms part of the great political machinery of the government, and its patronage is often effectually used to influence the House, for purposes entirely distinct from company interests. In its own employments and revenues, it presents objects equally tempting to any combination seeking power or patronage, and by a sort of moral affinity, the Tory and the India interests

have joined their forces in defending existing abuses. Their objects are similar, and in general the government and the company have gone on together harmoniously, mutually sustaining and corrupting each other.

The attempt made by Mr. Fox to separate the Company patronage from the governinent, threw the Tory lords into a paroxysm of terror. They saw one of the chief sources of power and influence departing from their party, and as a necessary consequence, the future predominance of the Whig interest. To prevent the passage of the act brought in by him, the personal opinions of the King were invoked, as a last resource in the House of Lords, to control their deliberations, and by a disgraceful intrigue, the honest but narrow prejudices of George 3d were so far excited, as to cause an entire alienation of his confidence from the great Whig Min

ister.

Their influence with the last Tory administration, was seen in the nomination of the Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons in the reign of the late King, to enquire into the state of the Company's affairs with a view to the removal of the charter. In that Committee, there were 3 directors, 7 proprietors, and 2 servants of the Company, two West India proprietors, and 8 members of the administration, all directly interested in extending the monopoly.

The West India interest, although less powerful, is still influential, and the colonial appoint

ments in the gift of the government, furnish another fund of official patronage. This interest controlled about 34 votes in the same House of Commons; but these members represented the colonies only, so far as their interests were connected with those of the West India proprietors. Other interests, such as the Bank of England and the Church, are also represented in the House of Commons, and when closely investigated, it will be found, that although these interests sometimes clash, they are finally brought to act together, and when united, they furnish a fund of government patronage, in comparison with which, the sources of corruption at the disposal of republican or imperial Rome, shrink into insignificance.

What effect this patronage has upon the House of Commons, may be gathered from the fact, that the members of the first house, elected under the present King, enjoyed either in their own persons, or through their near connexions, places and pensions to the amount of £470,000, or upwards of $2,000,000 per annum, and that for a long series of years, the daily increasing patronage of the government and of the East India Company, and the jobs and lucrative contracts and employments, which the expenditure and public business of the British Empire placed at the disposal of the Tory party, were openly used to control the deliberations and the votes of the popular branch of the Imperial Parliament. By these means, the government of Great Britain has

ic; and the resources of her colonies, and the industry of her own people have been so heavily taxed, to sustain the splendor of a luxuriant and indolent nobility.

The effects of this constitution of the government upon the public expenditure, and upon the foreign and domestic policy of the kingdom may be seen in its enormous national debt; and its inseparable concomitant high taxation, in the increase of places, pensions and sinecures; in the large salaries paid to all employed by the government at home or abroad; in the long and expensive wars waged to preserve the balance of power in Europe and to extend the colonial empire of England, in India and America; in the magnificent public establishments provided for her worn out soldiers and sailors, and in a system of poor laws, which prefers to maintain a sixth part of the population as paupers, rather than to facilitate a distribution of property, which would indeed diminish the power of the aristocracy, but only to afford additional employment to the idle poor. They may be seen in the gorgeous splendor of her nobility, and in the destitution of her peasantry; in her extensive commerce with her colonial possessions, whose productions are destined to swell the wealth and pamper the pride of the mother country, and in the impoverishing those colonies, and the prostration of their best and permanent interests through misgovernment. In short they may be discovered in every department of the government, in

to the operation of this system, may be attributed much of what is the boast, and nearly all which ought to be the shame of England.

By it the Catholics of Ireland have been compelled to maintain at an annual expense of £1,785,000, a Protestant Church for the benefit of the few who have appropriated its pluralities and its sinecures; and the natives of India have been ground into the dust to swell the dividends of a commercial company, whose sole claim to the produce of their labor is founded upon successful war. The grievous abusés resulting from the manner in which political power is vested and administered in England, are so numerous that it is scarcely possible that even the belief of the participation of the people in the government, through the House of Commons, or the wealth and influence of the aristocracy, or the military force, at the command of the ministry, or even all combined, could have prevented a violent attempt to remedy them, had parties been so divided, that the aristocracy were as united in sustaining these abuses, as the mass of the nation were in opposition to them. Such a division would soon have presented a decisive issue, and the fatal contest could not have been averted. Fortunately, however, for the aristocracy, there were many in that class, who were opposed upon principle, to a continuance of these abuses, and who wisely sought to preserve a portion of their privileges by abolishing some of the

most obnoxious. Seeking a reform of the government with as much anxiety, as the more radical reformers, their rank and station in society enabled them to take the lead in the reforming party, and to direct its efforts to effecting a constitutional, instead of a violent reform of the political institutions of the country. In the same class of moderate reformers, may be ranked the wealthymanufacturers, merchants, and bankers, who seek a direct, instead of an indirect representation in the government. To all these persons, who may be regarded as the leaders of the reforming party, a revolution attended with violence would be equally unwelcome as to the Tory party. Their movements are directed to effect a peaceable reformation, and wherever the elements of discontent have exploded in violence, as in the combinations for higher wages in the mining and manufacturing districts, in the incendiary conspiracies, in the agricultural counties, or in the anti-union movements in Ireland, the ringleaders have been surrendered to the vengeance of the laws without any interference on the part of the Whigs. But in all agitations to intimidate the aristocracy, so long as the violence is not likely to overpower the public authorities, and to ensure the triumph of the mob, both divisions of the reformersthe Radicals and the Whigs move on harmoniously; and great changes must be effected in the political system of England, before such discrepency can arise in their views, as to place them in opposition to each other.

With all their combined efforts' however, they were doomed to experience constant defeat during the long reign of George the 3d, and during the greater part of that of his successor. Every attempt seemed to place the objects of their wishes at a more unattainable distance.

Catholic emancipation, reform in the House of Commons, retrenchment in the public expenditure, diminution of the taxes, of tithes and of poor rates, were still the objects of deferred hope; and the deep but not unobserved current of popular discontent, was fast setting against the government itself.

The first concession to public opinion was Catholic emancipation, and this was accompanied with the ungracious remark, that it was made, not because it was right, but because it was necessary and expedient. The right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience-a right, personal, private, and unalienable, was conceded to public opinion, after a severe contest, and after it had caused the overthrow of more than one administration, in order, as the ministry avowed in Parliament, to avert a civil war! This concession was fatal to the supremacy of the Tory party. It admitted the existence of a power in the state, stronger than the physical force of the government, and it made the further and more fatal admission, that power was opposed to the existing system.

Public opinion now acquired an acknowledged existence, and the Duke of Wellington found