Parliament_, and it was supported most strenuously by all the
associators _who are members_, with Mr. Fox at their head. He and they
contended for referring this libel to a committee. Upon the question of
that reference they grounded all their debate for a change in the
constitution of Parliament. The pretended petition is, in fact, a
regular charge or impeachment of the House of Commons, digested into a
number of articles. This plan of reform is not a criminal impeachment,
but a matter of prudence, to be submitted to the public wisdom, which
must be as well apprised of the facts as petitioners can be. But those
accusers of the House of Commons have proceeded upon the principles of a
criminal process, and have had the effrontery to offer proof on each
article.

42. This charge the party of Mr. Fox maintained article by article,
beginning with the first,--namely, the interference of peers at
elections, and their nominating in effect several of the members of the
House of Commons. In the printed list of grievances which they made out
on the occasion, and in support of their charge, is found the borough
for which, under Lord Fitzwilliam's influence, I now sit. By this
remonstrance, and its object, they hope to defeat the operation of
property in elections, and in reality to dissolve the connection and
communication of interests which makes the Houses of Parliament a mutual
support to each other. Mr. Fox and the Friends of the People are not so
ignorant as not to know that peers do not interfere in elections as
peers, but as men of property; they well know that the House of Lords
is by itself the feeblest part of the Constitution; they know that the
House of Lords is supported only by its connections with the crown and
with the House of Commons, and that without this double connection the
Lords could not exist a single year. They know that all these parts of
our Constitution, whilst they are balanced as opposing interests, are