deciſions have often been apparently partial, and ſometimes tyrannically oppreſſive. A majority has been given to a favourite candidate, by expunging votes which had always been allowed, and which therefore had the authority by which all votes are given, that of cuſtom uninterrupted. When the Commons determine who ſhall be conſtituents, they may, with ſome propriety, be ſaid to make law, becauſe thoſe determinations have hitherto, for the ſake of quiet, been adopted by ſucceeding Parliaments. A vote therefore of the Houſe, when it operates as a law, is to individuals a law only temporary, but to communities perpetual.
Yet though all this has been done, and though at every new Parliament much of this is expected to be done again, it has never produced in any former time ſuch an alarming criſis. We have found by experience, that though a ſquire has given
