much more as it is at present, where so many persons are returned for boroughs, who do not possess a foot of land in the kingdom?
By the old constitution, whoever possessed a freehold in land, by which he was a gainer of forty shillings a year, had the privilege to vote for a knight of the shire. The good effects of this law are wholly eluded, partly by the course of time, and partly by corruption. Forty shillings, in those ages, were equal to twenty pounds in ours; and therefore it was then a want of sagacity, to fix that privilege to a determinate sum, rather than to a certain quantity of land, arable or pasture, able to produce a certain quantity of corn or hay. And therefore it is highly absurd, and against the intent of the law, that this defect is not regulated.
But the matter is still worse; for any gentleman can, upon occasion, make as many freeholders, as his estate or settlement will allow, by making leases for life of land at a rack rent of forty shillings; where a tenant, who is not worth one farthing a year when his rent is paid, shall be held a legal voter for a person to represent his county. Neither do I enter into half the frauds that are practised upon this occasion.
It is likewise absurd, that boroughs decayed are not absolutely extinguished, because the returned members do in reality represent nobody at all; and that several large towns are not represented, though full of industrious townsmen, who must advance the trade of the kingdom.
The claim of senators, to have themselves and servants exempted from lawsuits and arrests, is manifestly absurd. The proceedings at law are already
so
