WILLIAM AND MARY.

147

But, while Whigs and Tories agreed in wishing to maintainthe existing rights of election, both "Whigs and Tories wereforced to admit that the relation between the elector and therepresentative was not what it ought to be. Before the civilwars the House of Commons had enjoyed the fullest confidenceof the nation. A House of Commons, distrusted, despised,hated by the Commons, was a thing unknown. The very wordswould, to Sir Peter Wentworth or Sir Edward Coke, havesounded like a contradiction in terms. But by degrees a changetook place. The Parliament elected in 1661 , during that fit ofjoy and fondness which followed the return of the royal family,represented, not the deliberate sense, but the momentarycaprice of the nation. Many of the members were men who, afew months earlier or a few months later, would have had nochance of obtaining seats, men of broken fortunes and of dis-solute habits, men whose only claim to public confidence wasthe ferocious hatred which they bore to rebels and Puritans.The people, as soon as they had become sober, saw with dis-may to what an assembly they had, during their intoxication,confided the care of their property, their liberty and theirreligion. And the choice, made in a moment of frantic en-thusiasm, might prove to be a choice for life. As the law thenstood, it depended entirely on the King’s pleasure whether,during his reign, the electors should have.an opportunity ofrepairing their error. Eighteen years passed away. A newgeneration grew up. To the fervid loyalty with which Charleshad been welcomed back to Dover succeeded discontent anddisaffection. The general cry was that the kingdom was mis-governed, degraded, given up as a prey to worthless men andmore worthless women, that our navy had been found unequalto a contest with Holland, that our independence had beenbartered for the gold of France, that our consciences w r ere indanger of being again subjected to the yoke of Home. The

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CHAP.

XIX.

I Giili.