If I wrote merely to please the popular palate, it would indeed be
as little troublesome to me as to another to extol these remedies,
so famous in speculation, but to which their greatest admirers have
never attempted seriously to resort in practice. I confess them,
that I have no sort of reliance upon either a Triennial Parliament
or a Place-bill. With regard to the former, perhaps, it might
rather serve to counteract than to promote the ends that are
proposed by it. To say nothing of the horrible disorders among the
people attending frequent elections, I should be fearful of
committing, every three years, the independent gentlemen of the
country into a contest with the Treasury. It is easy to see which
of the contending parties would be ruined first. Whoever has taken
a careful view of public proceedings, so as to endeavour to ground
his speculations on his experience, must have observed how
prodigiously greater the power of Ministry is in the first and last
session of a Parliament, than it is in the intermediate periods,
when Members sit a little on their seats. The persons of the
greatest Parliamentary experience, with whom I have conversed, did
constantly, in canvassing the fate of questions, allow something to
the Court side, upon account of the elections depending or imminent.
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