negative, to the great disappointment and displeasure of the Commons, was of this general nature, or excluded only certain specified officers of the Crown, I am not able to determine; though the prudence and expediency of William's refusal must depend entirely upon that question.[282] But in the act of settlement, the clause is quite without exception; and, if it had ever taken effect, no minister could have had a seat in the House of Commons, to bring forward, explain, or defend the measures of the executive government. Such a separation and want of intelligence between the Crown and parliament must either have destroyed the one, or degraded the other. The House of Commons would either, in jealousy and passion, have armed the strength of the people to subvert the monarchy, or, losing that effective control over the appointment of ministers, which has sometimes gone near to their nomination, would have fallen almost into the condition of those states-general of ancient kingdoms, which have met only to be cajoled into subsidies, and give a passive consent to the propositions of the court. It is one of the greatest safeguards of our liberty, that eloquent and ambitious men, such as aspire to guide the councils of the Crown, are from habit and use so connected with the houses of parliament, and derive from them so much of their renown and influence, that they lie under no temptation, nor could without insanity be prevailed upon, to diminish the authority and privileges of that assembly. No English statesman, since the revolution, can be liable to the very slightest suspicion of an aim, or even a wish, to establish absolute monarchy on the ruins of our constitution. Whatever else has been done, or designed to be done amiss, the rights of parliament have been out of danger. They have, whenever a man of powerful mind shall direct the cabinet, and none else can possibly be formidable, the strong security of his own interest, which no such man will desire to build on the caprice and intrigue of a court. And, as this immediate connection of the advisers of the Crown with the House of Commons, so that they are, and ever profess themselves, as truly the servants of one as of the other, is a pledge for their loyalty to the entire legislature, as well as to their sovereign (I mean, of course, as to the fundamental principles of our constitution), so has it preserved for the Commons their preponderating share in the executive administration, and elevated them in the eyes of foreign nations, till the monarchy itself has fallen comparatively into shade. The pulse of Europe beats according to the tone of our parliament; the counsels of our kings are there revealed, and by that kind of previous sanction which it has been customary to obtain, become, as it were, the resolutions of a senate; and we enjoy the individual pride and dignity which belong to republicans, with the steadiness and tranquillity which the supremacy of a single person has been supposed