of a Triumvirate, or of a Senate of Nobles or proud Patricians, (as among the Romans, at different periods of time). The administration of each of these orders of power, respectively, is almost equally arbitrary, uncertain, and dangerous to the community; to which the Histories of all monarchical as well as aristocratical Governments (I mean those that are merely or too nearly such) bear sufficient testimony: so that the Representation of the people is the grand point of distinction, the fundamental principle, whereby the equity and safety of the English Government is to be measured, when we compare it with such Governments as either that of France or that of Poland.
I have already given some specimens of French Government and French Law in my Preface, it being necessary that British Subjects should be well aware of the
