By the lucrative amount of such
casual breaches in the Constitution, judge what the stated and fixed rule of
supply has been in that kingdom. Your Irish pensioners would starve, if they had
no other fund to live on than taxes granted by English authority. Turn your eyes
to those popular grants from whence all your great supplies are come, and learn
to respect that only source of public wealth in the British Empire.
My next example is Wales. This country was said to be reduced by Henry the
Third. It was said more truly to be so by Edward the First. But though then
conquered, it was not looked upon as any part of the realm of England. Its old
Constitution, whatever that might have been, was destroyed, and no good one was
substituted in its place. The care of that tract was put into the hands of Lords
Marchers [Footnote: 48]--a form of government of a very singular kind; a strange
heterogeneous monster, something between hostility and government; perhaps it
has a sort of resemblance, according to the modes of those terms, to that of
Commander-in-chief at present, to whom all civil power is granted as secondary.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113