to fuppofe the poffibility of its actual exiftence, is foolish and abfurd. The fatal confequences of fuch attempts to ref tore, as it is called, to the people the fovereignty they are imagined to have farmed out, as it were, to their rulers, fubject to divers claims of forfeiture and re-entry, has indeed been too well illuftrated by the late eventful history of a neighbouring kingdom, for us here, or our fellow-subjects in Ireland, to require much argument to convince us a pious Chriftian, Yet, as his theory of government has served for a bafis to the deftructive fyftems of the Condorcets, Priestleys, and Paynes, fo his metaphysical principles have become the groundwork of the vain wisdom and false philosophy which began by denying the existence of the material world, and proceeded, in the writings of the late Mr. Hume and others, to extend that wild scepticism of an ingenious and well-intentioned Prelate* to the disbelief of fpirit alfo, of the immortal nature of man, and the being of God himself. This remark has been, in a great meafure, occafioned by my recollection of a truly great philofopher, to whofe early leffons and kindness I look back with tenderness and pride, who was among the first to prove that system adopted by Locke concerning ideas, tended, by its natural confequence, to thofe of Berkeley and Hume; but who, in announcing that opinion to the world, anxiously disclaimed every wish or intention to disparage the talents of thofe, the fallacy and danger of whofe doctrines he thought he could demonftrate, and every view of arrogating to himself any peculiar fagacity and difcernment on that account. Indeed those who remember him, know that there never was learning and wisdom more free from arrogance and prefumption than his. A traveller,' fays he, "of good judgment may mistake his way, and be ⚫led: unawares into a wrong track; and while the road is fair before him, may go on without fufpicion, and be followed by others; but when it ends in a precipice, it requires no peculiar degree of wisdom and pene⚫tration to know he has gone wrong, nor perhaps to find out what mif• led himt.' *Bishop Berkeley. † Dr. Reid's Enquiry into the Human Mind, p. 23. of of its folly and wickedness. It has in that country overturned the throne of the Monarch and the altars of God: it has fanctioned murder, parricide, and regicide; and has taught every illiterate peasant to confider himself as a fit candidate for fupreme power, the fovereign of his sovereign, and the lawgiver of mankind→→ ་ Ergo, regibus occifis, fubverfa jacebat Res itaque ad fummam fecem turbafque redibar. I agree with a person juftly eminent, and for whom I entertain a very fincere respect, when he says, that it is dan gerous in a popular affembly to ftate that there are points < where the powers of the legislature end, and those of the • people at large begin. Indeed I know of no point where a legitimate conftitutional power in the people at large begins; there may be fome very special cafes to which that of the legislature cannot reach; and in which, according to my conception, when any measure becomes neceffary and unavoidable, not the power, i. e. any rightful power of the people, but the diffolution of the conftitution and government, will begin; from which anarchy it must be left, in fuch cases, to chance, to the circumftances of the times, the force of habit, the intrinfic merit of ancient institutions, and the prudence and virtue of individuals poffeffing influence, either personal or from fituation, to extricate the na a Lucret. lib. v. ver. 1135 Vide the Speech of the Right Hon. John Fofter, p. 108. I had not then received the correct edition, but I had seen several accounts of it in different newspapers. I fhall take the liberty now to refer to it according to that correct edition in some of the following pages. tion. It is indeed delicate and dangerous wantonly to moot fuch fort of cafes: no judge of human nature who is a friend to his country, ever will; whatever may be his particular creed and party on matters fairly debateable, and open to a fafe difference in opinion. There are however cafes of another description, which may be more freely difcuffed, to which also the supreme power of the Legislature (in our conftitution, of the Parliament) cannot extend; but which, being of a negative kind, and not requiring any measure to be taken or act done, do not connect themselves with the notion of any neceffary diffolution of the frame of the government, They are, in truth, of fuch a fort, that, on their correct analyfis, it will be found, that the idea of the application of that power involves either phyfical or moral impoffibility, or a natural contradiction in the terms of the propofition. Two examples, material for the present purpose, elpecially the laft of them, will illuftrate the diftin&tion to which I have wifhed to draw the attention of the House. ift. Parliament cannot pass a law which a fubfequent Parliament fhall not be able to repeal. The plain reafon of this is, that the fuppofition of fuch a power is contradictory to itself. It is to fuppofe the Parliament of next year lefs abfolute and fupreme than the Parliament of thisb. 2d. I have heard it contended, not without plaufibility, that the Parliament cannot difmember the kingdom or circumfcribe the fphere of its own authority, and confequently that on that account it cannot, diffolve any union which by treaty or otherwise hath blended into one state, fubject to its authority, parts which exifted, previous to fuch treaty, in a feparate and diftinct condition, with feparate legiflatures; that to fuppofe it capable of doing this is also a contradiction in terms; that the nation and its Parliament are fuch indivifible integral parts, the one governed, the other governing, and forming together one indivifible aggregate or body politic; that if you detach any part of this body, what remains is no longer the fame ftate, the fame nation, the fame legiflature or parliament; that the two parts may form themselves again each or either into a fimilar conftitution to what before exifted, or into other conftitutions; but that the difmemberment will have effected that fort of resolution of the aggregate into its elements, which is known to happen in our municipal law, when, by the loss of an integral part, an ordinary corporation is diffolved, and loses its corporate existence; that it is univerfally true, that the dismemberment of any legitimate ftate cannot be a legitimate act of that state; but neceffarily fuppofes, even on ceffions in virtue of conqueft, exchange, &c. a difruption of the integrity of the ftate; that it might be difficult to argue this pofition on the hiftory of thofe ill-conftructed conftitutions, where difmemberment has in fact often taken place, or with regard to extreme cafes, of the ceffion of small infignificant portions of a large dominion; but that nobody will fay that the actual ftate and conftitution of Great Britain would remain if the county of Northumberland or Cornwall, the ancient kingdom of Scotland, or the principality of Wales, were detached from it. But, in the cafe of a union and incorporation of new parts, the incompetency of parliament to decompofe them is, I think, abundantly obvious, without adopting the foregoing opinion to its full extent, which I by no means do, with regard to the difmemberment of fome original fraction, or diftrict, of what had always conftituted one and the fame state. The essential condition of such a union is the combination of each of the conftituent parts into a new whole, in which the identical characters and qualities of those parts are fo loft that they can no where afterwards be found or restored. The contracting parties cease to exist, and become incapable of being revived. It is as impoffible to replace them in ftatu quo, as it would be to recover the identical parts of two images of the fame metal, which may have been melted together, and caft into one new figure made up of both. Phyfically, or even morally and politically speaking, Scotland, as a country, might be again disjoined from England: it might again have Parliaments, as England might have; but this must be by a process exactly the fame with that which should separate Cornwall, Norfolk, Caithness, or Sutherland, from Great Britain. It would not be a redintegration or reftoration of Scotland to her former ftate, as fhe exifted before 1707: that ftate has been melted down and indiffolubly mingled with that of England, which, in like manner, can never become a separate kingdom, as of its ancient right. If this reafoning is as juft and correct as it appears to me, all apprehenfions and alarms muft neceffarily vanish (alarms fometimes attempted to be raised when it has been thought they might affift a little dearth of argument), of Great Britain affuming a right to break through, and set |