Your representatives. But other questions have been started, on which Your determination should be equally clear and unanimous. Let it be impressed upon Your minds, let it be instilled into Your children, that the liberty of the press is the Palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman, and that the right of juries to return a general verdict, in all cases whatsoever, is an essential part of our constitution, not to be controuled or limited by the judges, nor in any shape questionable by the legislature. The power of King, Lords, and Commons is not an arbitrary power*. They are the trustees, not the owners of the estate. The fee-simple is in US. They cannot alienate, they cannot waste. When we say that the legislature is supreme, we mean

†Stat. 39-40 Geo. III. c. 67. Art. 4. EDIT.

This positive denial, of an arbitrary power being vested in the legisLature, is not in fact a new doctrine. When the Earl of Lindsey, in the year 1675, brought a bill into the house of lords, To prevent the dangers, which might arise from persons disaffected to government, by which an oath and penalty was to be imposed upon the members of both houses, it was affirmed, in a protest signed by twenty-three lay-peers, (my lords the bishops were not accustomed to protest) "That the privilege of sitting and voting in parliament was an honour they hard by birth, and a right so inherent in them, and inseparable from them, that nothing could take it away, but what, by the law of the land, must withal take away their lives, and corrupt their blood.”—These noble peers, (whose names are a reproach to their posterity) have, in this instance, solemnly denied the power of parliament to alter the constitution. Under a particular proposition, they have asserted a general truth, in which every man in England is concerned.

that it is the highest power known to the constitution:—that it is the highest in comparison with the other subordinate powers established by the laws. In this sense, the word supreme is relative, not absolute. The power of the legislature is limited, not only by the general rules of natural justice, and the welfare of the community, but by the forms and principles of our particular constitution. If this doctrine be not true, we must admit, that King, Lords, and Commons have no rule to direct their resolutions, but merely their own will and pleasure. They might unite the legislative and executive power in the same hands, and dissolve the constitution by an act of parliament. But I am persuaded You will not leave it to the choice of seven hundred persons, notoriously corrupted by the crown, whether seven millions of their equals shall be freemen or slaves. The certainty of forfeiting their own rights, when they sacrifice those of the nation, is no check to a brutal degenerate mind. Without insisting upon the extravagant concession made to Harry the eighth, there are instances, in the history of other countries, of a formal, deliberate surrender of the public liberty into the hands of the sovereign. If England does not share the same fate, it is because we have better resources, than in the virtue of either house of parliament.

I said that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all Your rights, and that the right of juries to return a general verdict is part of Your constitution. To preserve the whole system, You must correct Your legislature. With regard to any influence of the constituent over the conduct of the representative, there is little difference between a seat in parliament for seven years and a seat for life. The prospect of Your resentment is too remote; and although the last session of a septennial parliament be usually employed in courting the favour of the people, consider that, at this rate, Your representatives have six years for offence, and but one for atonement. A death-bed repentance seldom reaches to restitution. If you reflect that in the changes of administration, which have marked and disgraced the present reign, although your warmest patriots have in their turn been invested with

the lawful and unlawful authority of the crown, and though other reliefs or improvements have been held forth to the people, yet that no one man in office has ever promoted or encouraged a bill for shortening the duration of parliaments, but that, (whoever was minister) the opposition to this measure, ever since the septennial act passed, has been constant and uniform on the part of government,-You cannot but conclude, without the possibility of a doubt, that long parliaments are the foundation of the undue influence of the crown. This influence answers every purpose of arbitrary power to the crown, with an expence and oppression to the people, which would be unnecessary in an arbitrary government. The best of our ministers find it the easiest and most compendious mode of conducting the King's affairs; and all ministers have a general interest in adhering to a system, which of itself is sufficient to support them in office, without any assistance from personal virtue, popularity, labour, abilities, or experience. It promises every gratification to avarice and ambition, and secures impunity.These are truths unquestionable.-If they make no impression, it is because they are too vulgar and notorious. But the inattention or indifference of the nation has continued too long. You are roused at last to a sense of Your danger.-The remedy will soon be in your power. If JUNIUS lives, You shall often be reminded of it. If, when the opportunity presents itself, You neglect to do Your duty to Yourselves and to posterity, to God and to Your country, I shall have one consolation left, in common with the meanest and basest of mankind.-Civil liberty may still last the life of

JUNIUS.

PREFACE.

THE encouragement given to a multitude of spurious, mangled publications of the letters of JUNIUS, persuades me, that a complete edition, corrected and improved by the author, will be favourably received. The printer will readily acquit me of any view to my own profit*. I undertake this troublesome task, merely to serve a man who has deserved well of me, and of the public; and who, on my account, has been exposed to an expensive, tyrannical prosecution. For these reasons, I give to Mr. Henry Sampson Woodfall, and to him alone, my right, interest, and property in these letters, as fully and completely, to all intents and purposes, as an author can possibly convey his property in his own works to another.

This edition contains all the letters of Junius, Philo Junius, and of Sir William Draper and Mr. Horne to Junius, with their respective dates, and according to the order in which they appeared in the Public Advertisert. The auxiliary part of Philo Junius was indispensably necessary to defend or explain particular passages in JUNIUS, in answer to plausible objections; but the subordinate character is never guilty of the indecorum of praising his principal. The fraud was innocent, and I always intended to explain it‡. The notes will be found not only useful, but necessary. References to facts not generally known, or allusions to the current

* See Private Letters, No. 59. and note appended to it. EDIT.

From this order there are two or three deviations, but too trivial to be worth pointing out. EDIT.

It was, in point of fact, publicly avowed by the author, in the following notice inserted in the Public Advertiser October 20, 1771:

"We have the author's consent to say, that the letters, published in this paper under the signature of Philo Junius, are written by Junius." EDIT.