But the affair which will be proposed to you by a person of rank
and ability is an alteration in the constitution of Parliament itself.
It is impossible for you to have a subject before you of more
importance, and that requires a more cool and more mature consideration,
both on its own account, and for the credit of our sobriety of mind, who
are to resolve upon it.
The county will in some way or other be called upon to declare it your
opinion, that the House of Commons is not sufficiently numerous, and
that the elections are not sufficiently frequent,--that an hundred new
knights of the shire ought to be added, and that we are to have a new
election once in three years for certain, and as much oftener as the
king pleases. Such will be the state of things, if the proposition made
shall take effect.
All this may be proper. But, as an honest man, I cannot possibly give my
rote for it, until I have considered it more fully. I will not deny that
our Constitution may have faults, and that those faults, when found,
ought to be corrected; but, on the whole, that Constitution has been our
own pride, and an object of admiration to all other nations.
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