The Bill for explaining and extending the Act of Habeas Corpus was now got into the House of Lords, where it produced a new scene, and showed how the feelings of men differ from their professions. The constitution, as settled at present, is in a King elected by the voice of the people, without any right of succession, in opposition to an arbitrary family, and tied down from acts of violence against the liberty of individuals by that peculiar fundamental law, the act of Habeas Corpus. The House of Lords is the next branch of the Legislature. It is composed of the ancient Peerage, who have expelled their ancient Kings for the innovations of the latter, and of modern Peers, created under the new establishment by the favour of the Prince, or selected from the sages of the Law for their integrity, wisdom, and knowledge of the true rights of their country. In this House, too, sit the Bishops, who cannot be too tender of those laws, which secure the exercise of their holy religion. In this House sit the Cavendishes and Russels, renowned for their vigorous defence of the Habeas Corpus; and with them the Duke of Newcastle, the ring-leader of the mob of Whigs on the accession of the present family. The third estate is the House of Commons. Let us, before we pass to the discussion of the Bill, anticipate the behaviour of all these persons and bodies of men, all engaged by common interest and common honour to support the charter, for which they had violated other inferior ties; but almost all swayed by private and separate interests to abandon the cause. The King talked openly at his Levee against the Bill; and it was understood to be offensive to him to vote for the extension of it. He was King; he did not desire to reduce the prerogative lower than it had been delivered to him. The Lords were become so much more considerable than they had been before the Revolution, that they were in no danger from the Crown; and when they do not fear it, they will always be ready to uphold it. They look on themselves as distinct from the rest of the nation; and at best, leave the people to be taken care of by their representatives, the Commons. As jealous of, and as fond of their privileges, as the King of his prerogative, they are attentive to maintain them, and deem the rights of the people rather encroachments than a common interest. Added to this general description, they were, at the time I write of, a tame, subservient, incapable set of men, governed entirely by the Duke of Newcastle, and the two lawyers, Hardwicke and Mansfield. Those lawyers were instances of the discrimination that ought to be made between the spirit of the laws and the profession of them. Nobody better read in them, nobody more warm to enforce them, nobody less actuated by the essence of them. If either of them ever took the side of liberty, or the side of mildness, I am willing to be thought to asperse them. The conduct of the Prelates had for so many years been so uniformly supple, that no