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England can never be ruined but by a Parliament !-LORD TREASURER
BURLEIGH.

Parliament being the highest, and greatest court in the kingdom, if by
any means a misgovernment should any way fall upon it, the subjects are
left without a remedy !-SIR MATTHEW HALE.

As Rome, Sparta, and Carthage have lost their liberty, and perished, so
the Constitution of England will in time lose its liberty; will perish.
It will perish whenever the legislative power shall become more corrupt
than the Executive.-MONTESQUIEU.

If any alteration_might be wished or suggested in the present frame of
parliaments, it should be in favour of a more complete representation of
the people.-BLACKSTONE.

The Defect of Representation is the national disease, and unless you apply
a remedy to that disease you must inevitably take the consequences with
which it is pregnant.... Without a Parliamentary Reform, the nation
will be plunged into new wars: without a Parliamentary Reform you
cannot be safe against bad ministers, nor can even good ministers be of
use to you. No honest man, can according to the present system con-
tinue minister.-WILLIAM PITT.

HARLOW: PRINTED BY B. FLOWER;

FOR M. JONES, NO. 5. NEWGATE STREET, LONDON;
AND SOLD BY THE DIFFERENT BOOKSELLERS
IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

1809.

PREFACE.

ON the commencement of this work we professed

our opinion, that the only radical, safe, and constitutional remedy for the continually increasing grievances of which we have so just a right to complain, and to insist on their removal, is a more FREQUENT, and a more EQUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE; by which measure alone, the House of Commons would become the constitutional and effectual guardians of the just prerogatives of the crown, and of the inalienable rights of those, whose servants and representatives they profess to be. In the Preface to our last Volume, we again expressed our firm conviction, that nothing short of such a Reform " can afford us "a rational prospect that our crying grievances will "be redressed, our oppressive burdens lightened, and

our deplorable situation ameliorated;" and that no PARTY, whatever might be their professions, if they were the enemies, or even the lukewarm friends of such Reform, were deserving of the confidence or the support of the people.

Since the commencement of the present Volume, such a blaze of evidence, arising from the transactions which have been detailed in the house of Commons during the late session, has unexpectedly broke forth, that he who is not now convinced of the indispensible necessity of a thorough change of system in the administration of our affairs, must be wilfully blind: that evidence, has indeed flashed conviction on the minds. of our countrymen to so great a degree, as to arouse them from that lethargy into which they had so long fallen, and to draw, from them their decided opinion on subjects of the utmost importance to the public