It is the undoubted prerogative of the crown to dissolve parliament; but
we beg leave to lay before his majesty, that it is, of all the trusts
vested in his majesty, the most critical and delicate, and that in which
this house has the most reason to require, not only the good faith, but
the favour of the crown. His commons are not always upon a par with his
ministers in an application to popular judgment: it is not in the power
of the members of this house to go to their election at the moment the
most favourable to them. It is in the power of the crown to choose a
time for their dissolution whilst great and arduous matters of state and
legislation are depending, which may be easily misunderstood, and which
cannot be fully explained before that misunderstanding may prove fatal
to the honour that belongs, and to the consideration that is due, to
members of parliament. With his majesty is the gift of all the rewards,
the honours, distinctions, favour, and graces of the state; with his
majesty is the mitigation of all the rigours of the law: and we rejoice
to see the crown possessed of trusts calculated to obtain goodwill, and
charged with duties which are popular and pleasing. Our trusts are of a
different kind. Our duties are harsh and invidious in their nature; and
justice and safety is all we can expect in the exercise of them. We
are to offer salutary, which is not always pleasing, counsel; we are to
inquire and to accuse: and the objects of our inquiry and charge will be
for the most part persons of wealth, power, and extensive connections:
we are to make rigid laws for the preservation of revenue, which of
necessity more or less confine some action, or restrain some function,
which before was free: what is the most critical and invidious of all,
the whole body of the public impositions originate from us, and the hand
of the House of Commons is seen and felt in every burthen that presses
on the people. Whilst, ultimately, we are serving them, and in the first
instance whilst we are serving his majesty, it will be hard, indeed, if
we should see a House of Commons the victim of its zeal and fidelity,
sacrificed by his ministers to those very popular discontents, which
shall be excited by our dutiful endeavours for the security and
greatness of his throne. No other consequence can result from such
an example, but that, in future, the House of Commons, consulting its
safety at the expense of its duties, and suffering the whole energy of
the state to be relaxed, will shrink from every service, which, however
necessary, is of a great and arduous nature; or that, willing to provide
for the public necessities, and, at the same time, to secure the means
of performing that task, they will exchange independence for protection,
and will court a subservient existence through the favour of those
ministers of state, or those secret advisers, who ought themselves to
stand in awe of the commons of this realm.
A House of Commons respected by his ministers is essential to his
majesty's service: it is fit that they should yield to parliament, and
not that parliament should be new modelled until it is fitted to their
purposes. If our authority is only to be held up when we coincide in
opinion with his majesty's advisers, but is to be set at nought the
moment it differs from them, the House of Commons will sink into a mere
appendage of administration; and will lose that independent character
which, inseparably connecting the honour and reputation with the acts
of this house, enables us to afford a real, effective, and substantial
support to his government. It is the deference shown to our opinion
when we dissent from the servants of the crown, which alone can give
authority to the proceedings of this house when it concurs with their
measures.
That authority once lost, the credit of his majesty's crown will be
impaired in the eyes of all nations. Foreign powers, who may yet wish
to revive a friendly intercourse with this nation, will look in vain for
that hold which gave a connection with Great Britain the preference to
an alliance with any other state. A House of Commons, of which ministers
were known to stand in awe, where everything was necessarily discussed,
on principles fit to be openly and publicly avowed, and which could not
be retracted or varied without danger, furnished a ground of confidence
in the public faith, which the engagement of no state dependent on the
fluctuation of personal favour, and private advice, can ever pretend to.
If faith with the House of Commons, the grand security for the national
faith itself, can be broken with impunity, a wound is given to the
political importance of Great Britain, which will not easily be healed.