Of these the Crown could at that time reckon some seventy as its own property.

Besides those which belonged to the Crown, there was also the immense number which belonged to the Peerage.

If the king sought to strengthen an administration, the thing needful was not to enlist the services of able and distinguished men, but to conciliate a duke, who brought with him the control of a given quantity of voting power in the Lower House.

All this patrician influence, which may be found at the bottom of most of the intrigues of the period, would not have been touched by curtailing the duration of parliaments.
What then was the remedy, or had Burke no remedy to offer for these grave distempers of Parliament?
Only the remedy of the interposition of the body of the people itself.

We must beware of interpreting this phrase in the modern democratic sense.