110 Chapter VI
sized. For Delolme, as later for John Adams, the important thing was that a
strong king (or executive in the case of Adams), served as a barrier against ambi-
tions which when uncontrolled led to aristocracy. As for democracy, Delolme
showed little alarm that it would turn into “anarchy.” The real danger, he felt, with
the experience of Geneva behind him, was that “pure democracy,” or a system in
which a body of citizenry supposedly governed itself, would turn into an aristoc-
racy or oligarchy, since in popular assemblies a few ambitious individuals always
got control and perpetuated their position. Against this eventuality, he thought, a
strong king or executive was the best protection. England, said Delolme, was re-
ally the most nearly democratic state in Europe precisely because of its balance
between King, Lords, and Commons.
According to Delolme the separation was quite distinct. The King exercised all
executive power; he was the source of justice, he freely named his ministers, he
appointed to all offices, he commanded the army and navy. He was wholly inde-
pendent of Parliament except in one decisive respect; he depended on it for the
grant of money. Parliament made the laws; it had the initiative in legislation, and
was independent of the King, except that the King might interpose his veto. Par-
liament was wisely divided into two houses, Lords and Commons, not so much
in order to give special representation to the nobility, as Montesquieu had said,
as simply to provide a countercheck against ill- advised legislation. The Com-
mons, according to Delolme, were the duly elected representatives of the people;
he defends representative government against the aspersions of his countryman,
Rousseau.
In the first French editions of his book, while insisting that the British govern-
ment was the best in Europe, Delolme nevertheless observed that it suffered from
a few imperfections. He mentioned Old Sarum by name, and held the continued
representation of decayed boroughs to be a true constitutional defect. He thought
Parliament should be elected more frequently, and that something should be done
to stop the arbitrary impressment of sailors. He even said that such reforms were
sought by “a numerous party in the present Parliament.” He declared that one of
the virtues of the British government, in comparison with others, was “its greater
capacity for improvement.”^6
These comments disappeared from the first English edition of 1775. The De-
lolme whom people read for fifty years conveyed no such reservations. Since prac-
tically nothing is known of Delolme’s life, it is hard to explain the shift. He may
have changed his friends, or been influenced by his translator. It is also possible
that he shared in the hardening of opinion in England, the increasing tendency in
some circles to idealize the constitution exactly as it was, that took place in the
course of disputes with the American colonies.
Various modern authorities agree that the separation of powers was in fact the
chief characteristic of the British eighteenth- century constitution, as Delolme and
6 Constitution de l ’Angleterre (Amsterdam, 1771), 263–65. This edition, the Amsterdam edition of
1774, and the first English edition of 1775 are all dedicated to the radical Earl of Abingdon, who had
visited Geneva in the 1760’s and been associated there with Delolme and the Genevese democrats. The
later editions are dedicated to George III. On Abingdon see below, p. 136.