Sir,

If it was possible for any man, who hath the least knowledge of our constitution, to doubt in good earnest whether the preservation of public freedom depends on the preservation of parliamentary freedom, his doubts might be removed, and his opinions decided, one would imagine, by this single, obvious remark, that all the designs of our princes against liberty, since Parliaments began to be established on the model still subsisting, have been directed constantly to one of these two points, either to obtain such Parliaments as they could govern, or else to stand all the difficulties, and to run all the hazards of governing without Parliaments. The means principally employed to the first of these purposes, have been undue influences on the elections of members of the House of Commons, and on these members when chosen. When such influences could be employed successfully, they have answered all the ends of arbitrary will; and when they could not be so employed, arbitrary will hath been forced to submit to the constitution. This hath been the case, not only since, but before that great change in the balance of property, which began in the reigns of Henry the Seventh, and Henry the Eighth, and carried a great part of that weight into the scale of the commons, which had lain before in the scale of the peers and clergy.