further obſerved, that to ſay, the paſſing of this bill, was not to graſp to themſelves the right of election, but only to enlarge the time of calling new parliaments, was a manifeſt fallacy: for whenever the three years were expired, they could no longer be ſaid to ſubſiſt by the choice of the people, but by their own appointment.
For theſe reaſons, he thought the bill an open violation of the people’s liberties; or to ſpeak moſt mildly of it, a breach of the members truſt, in that part which would moſt ſenſibly affect them; and of that ill tendency in its conſequence, that as nothing but the ſecurity of the miniſtry could make it, at that time, needful; ſo nothing but a ſtanding force could make it laſting.
Notwithstanding the remonſtrances of thirty lords who entered their proteſts againſt this bill, becauſe, as they obſerved, frequent and new parliaments are required by the fundamental laws of the conſtitution, and that the bill, was, in their opinion, ſo far from preventing expences and corruptions that it would rather tend to increaſe them as the longer a parliament is to laſt, the more valuable a ſtation in it muſt become. And the greater will be the danger of corrupting the members of it, yet this extraordinary bill on the queſtion
