Those who have spoken and written upon this subject without doors,
do not so much deny the probable existence of these inconveniences
in their measure, as they trust for the prevention to remedies of
various sorts, which they propose. First, a place bill; but if this
will not do, as they fear it will not, then, they say, we will have
a rotation, and a certain number of you shall be rendered incapable
of being elected for ten years. Then, for the electors, they shall
ballot; the members of parliament also shall decide by ballot; and a
fifth project is the change of the present legal representation of
the kingdom. On all this I shall observe, that it will be very
unsuitable to your wisdom to adopt the project of a bill, to which
there are objections insuperable by anything in the bill itself,
upon the hope that those objections may be removed by subsequent
projects; every one of which is full of difficulties of its own, and
which are all of them very essential alterations in the
Constitution. This seems very irregular and unusual. If anything
should make this a very doubtful measure, what can make it more so
than that, in the opinion of its advocates, it would aggravate all
our old inconveniences in such a manner as to require a total
alteration in the Constitution of the kingdom? If the remedies are
proper in a triennial, they will not be less so in septennial
elections; let us try them first, see how the House relishes them,
see how they will operate in the nation; and then, having felt your
way, you will be prepared against these inconveniences.
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