and enlightened fociety poffeffes over the infecure and rude life of favage tribes. And all Government owes a large fhare, perhaps the largest share, of its energy to the opinion which is entertained of its ftability. Hence frequent and ftriking changes in a Constitution, whatever benefits they may promise or intro

had broken no contract; whose birth however was then thought by some not sufficiently authenticated; they in the first place annexed an entirely new condition to the inheritance of the Crown, namely, that of Proteftantism; and in the next place, instead of permitting it to devolve on Mary, who was so dear to public gratitude, who was a Proteftant, who according to the antient Conftitution had an exclufive right to the throne, her brother being fet afide; they elected her husband William, who had not the flightest previous title, to be King. They placed indeed a fceptre in the hand of Mary; but it was a barren sceptre. They made her, as Sir William Blackstone obferves (vol. i. p. 216), "only nominally Queen." They decreed that," the fole and full exercise of the regal power should "be only in, and executed by, the Prince of Orange.” They decreed, that in cafe of Mary's death the Crown fhould not devolve to her fifter the Princefs Anne, but remain abfolutely and exclufively to William. "Perhaps," fays Sir William Blackstone (vol. i. p. 215), "upon the "principles before eftablished, the Convention might, if "they pleased, have vested the regal dignity in a family "entirely new, and ftrangers to the royal blood."

duce,

duce, will certainly contribute in one most important point to endanger the public happiness. It is alfo to be remembered, that no great change in a Government is ever adopted with unanimity that those who are attached to the antient form are foured and rendered diffatif fied by the alteration: that there is always a hazard of civil convulfions, always a risk of final disappointment, attending the new experiment and that an ample allowance is in prudence to be made for unforeseen dangers and unexpected confequences. These remarks apply in fome degree to all fundamental changes in forms of Government, even when wrought by the regular means provided by the laws of the country. But they apply with double force to Revolutions effected by a nation itself superfeding the functions of its exifting Magiftrates by an exercise of its dormant rights. No nation therefore which is poffeffed any tolerable Conftitution ought, to exert its right of changing it by its own actual interpofition; unlefs there fhould be the moft convincing reasons to believe that the Revolution will be attended with an acceffion of general good very far exceeding any temporary

of

or permanent evils which may be likely to enfue. For otherwise, all who should endeavour to accomplish it, though not chargeable with injuftice towards the antient Governors, would be most criminal in the fight of God; they would prove themselves inconftant and rash where inconftancy and rafhnefs would be leaft excufable; rifking not only their own happinefs, but that of multitudes of their cotemporaries, eventually perhaps that of remote generations of their posterity.

If then it be true of Nations in general, that it is their duty to act with the greatest caution as to the introduction of radical changes into their respective forms of government; and more especially never to refort to their latent right of introducing them against the consent of the exifting Legislatures, except in those great emergences when the public safety and happiness moft obviously depend on the national interference; it is an obfervation which may with peculiar force be applied to Great Britain. For we are not only in poffeffion of a Constitution under which all ranks of subjects have long enjoyed the bleffings of liberty

and

and fecurity, of public and private happiness, to an extent rarely if ever experienced in any other country; but of a Conftitution which has provided the means of making effential alterations even in the form of government itself, if ever the Nation fhould be seriously and permanently convinced of their being neceffary.

II. We are now to confider thofe general duties of Englishmen, which, though they refult from the ties by which fubjects of the fame empire are bound to their lawful Governors and to each other, are either altogether or to a confiderable degree incapable of being afcertained by pofitive ftatutes. From this peculiarity in their nature, the extent in which they are respectively incumbent on each individual, and the manner in which they may best be performed by him, are points left to be determined by his own private judgement.

Those duties may be comprehended under the fingle term, Patriotifm; by which term is meant a peculiar affection for our Countrymen, at

tended

tended with an active zeal to promote their welfare.

That patriotism is a moral duty, is generally confeffed by perfons of every party and of every creed. Even thofe who are remarkable for unfeeling selfishness in their private intercourse with their fellow-citizens individually, are ufually loud in their profeffions of unbounded attachment to the community. In every seminary of education patriotism is fet before the youthful scholar as the ruling principle of the nations in whose history he is initiated; as the parent of every heroic action, of every generous enterprife, which throws a luftre over claffic ages. It is represented as one of the first fuggeftions of untutored reafon; one of the most imperious dictates of enlightened philofophy. Reafon and philofophy are employed to a very beneficial purpose, when they illuftrate the true nature and enforce the obligation of patriotism. But they are not the only foundations on which the duty of patriotism refts; nor the only fources from which its true nature may be collected.