What did that state of nature produce? System-builders will tell me, it produced deliberation on the right method of governing nations. The answer is not true. Time, accident, and events produced government;--but no matter, I will allow the position, with this proviso, that a victorious army shall sheathe their swords, and allow the wisest and best citizens to form a new Constitution: who sees not the absurdity and impracticability of this proposition? When did an army bestow freedom? Did that army which raised Cromwell to the throne--those republican heroes of Mrs. Macaulay? The Parliament was the true barrier against the King’s usurpations, and had done its duty nobly. Reformation, not destruction of the constitution, was its aim; and therefore, in her eyes, it was not less guilty than the King. I worship liberty as much as she does, detest despotism as much; but I never yet saw or read of a form of government under which more general freedom is enjoyed, than under our own. Republics veer towards aristocracy or democracy, and often end in a single tyrant,--not that nobles are not tyrants. For the people, they are not capable of government, and do more harm in an hour, when heated by popular incendiaries than a king can do in a year. It is a government like ours, in which all the three parts seek augmentation of their separate powers, and in which King, Lords, and Commons, are a watch and a check upon the other two, that best ensures the general happiness. Mrs. Macaulay will allow that there is no check upon an absolute monarch. In an aristocracy, the pride, ambition, and jealousy of the nobles are some check upon each individual grandee. But what is a check upon the people in a republic? In what republic have not the best citizens fallen a sacrifice to the ambition and envy of the worst? God grant that, with all its deficiencies, we may preserve our own mixed government! CHAPTER VII. Walpole determines to resume his Memoirs.--General Election.-- Audacity of Wilkes.--He contests the City of London and the County of Middlesex.--Riots during his Election.--His Triumph.--He surrenders to the King’s Bench.--The Elections.--Plan for the Expulsion of Wilkes.--Meeting of Parliament.--Riot before the King’s Bench.--Debate on Wilkes in the Commons.--French Designs on Corsica.--Riot among the Coalheavers.--Heroism of a Sailor.--Renewal of Wilkes’s Outlawry.--His Condemnation for the _North Briton_ and the _Essay on Woman_.--Riots at Boston. 1768.