To govern according to the sense and agreeably to the interests of
the people is a great and glorious object of government. This
object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular
election, and popular election is a mighty evil. It is such, and so
great an evil, that though there are few nations whose monarchs were
not originally elective, very few are now elected. They are the
distempers of elections, that have destroyed all free states. To
cure these distempers is difficult, if not impossible; the only
thing therefore left to save the commonwealth is to prevent their
return too frequently. The objects in view are, to have parliaments
as frequent as they can be without distracting them in the
prosecution of public business; on one hand, to secure their
dependence upon the people, on the other to give them that quiet in
their minds, and that ease in their fortunes, as to enable them to
perform the most arduous and most painful duty in the world with
spirit, with efficiency, with independency, and with experience, as
real public counsellors, not as the canvassers at a perpetual
election. It is wise to compass as many good ends as possibly you
can, and seeing there are inconveniences on both sides, with
benefits on both, to give up a part of the benefit to soften the
inconvenience.
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