due influence. Formerly, it was the interest of the people that the privileges of parliament should be left unlimited and undefined. At present, it is not only their interest, but I hold it to be essentially necessary to the preservation of the constitution, that the privileges of parliament should be strictly ascertained, and confined within the narrowest bounds the nature of the institution will admit of. Upon the same principle on which I would have resisted prerogative in the last century, I now resist privilege. It is indifferent to me whether the crown, by its own immediate act, imposes new, and dispenses with old laws, or whether the same arbitrary power produces the same effects through the medium of the house of commons. We trusted our representatives with privileges for their own defence and ours. We cannot hinder their desertion, but we can prevent their carrying over their arms to the service of the enemy.—It will be said, that I begin with endeavouring to reduce the argument concerning privilege to a mere question of convenience;— that, I deny, at one moment, what I would allow at another: and that, to resist the power of a prostituted house of commons, may establish a precedent injurious
