subject to support his Sovereign in the exer cife of all the rights with which the existing laws invest him, it requires nothing further. It binds no man to fupport his Monarch in acts of injuftice; it binds no man to render the least degree of obedience to the royal command, if it should enjoin the breach of the most inconfiderable law; or the infringement of a single right of the humblest peasant. In Great Britain the law is paramount and fupreme; it rules every inhabitant of the realm from the throne to the cottage; it will not permit even its highest executive officer to put forth for its deftruction those powers, which it has placed in his hands that they might be employed in enforcing its decrees; and if ever they should be put forth for that purpose, it prohibits every person under its jurisdiction from co-operating in the attempt.

The wisdom of the Conftitution has fortified our liberty with such ample bulwarks, and the Family on the Throne has been so far from manifefting a difpofition to fubvert them; that we look forward to their permanency, under the Divine bleffing, with a confidence

5

little

little short of perfect fecurity. The nature however of the prefent work requires the statement of two fundamental rights, which the people of Great Britain have retained notwithstanding their engagements to their governors, for the defence of national freedom, and the augmentation of national happiness.

The first is the right of refuming the delegated authority of the State from the hands of governors, who deliberately and flagrantly violate the conditions on which it was committed to them.

The precedent of the Revolution in 1688 is ftill fo fresh in the minds of Englishmen, that a fimple reference to that happy event will fufficiently prove the truth of this pofition. But let it be remembered with refpect to the right in queftion, if any crifis now unforeseen and unexpected should oblige pofterity to have recourse to it; that in fuch a conjuncture the breach of contract on the part of the Sovereign would not justify a fubject in co-operating forcibly to expel him from the throne, unless on mature reflection he should believe in his conscience

VOL. I.

H

confcience that the nation was defirous that the forfeiture should be exacted. If perfonal attachment to the Monarch, the hope of his conducting himself conftitutionally for the future, or the dread of inteftine broils and civil war, fhould determine the nation to overlook the criminal proceedings; that determination once manifefted (whether exprefsly declared, or impliedly conveyed by circumstances) would restore to the poffeffor of the throne the title to it which he had lost, and render every individual guilty of direct injuftice who fhould question it on the ground of those acts of ufurpation, which the public will had buried in pardon and oblivion. And further, if the wifh of the nation to refume the royal power from the Monarch who had betrayed his truft fhould unequivocally appear; yet no private fubject would be innocent before God in taking up arms for that purpose, unless he were feriously perfuaded that the attempt was defirable, and had a reasonable profpect of fuccefs. For though he might commit no breach of juftice by engaging in a hopelefs war against a manifeft and declared tyrant; he would fhew a very finful difregard of the welfare of his countrymen,

countrymen, an object which he ought to promote with zealous and unvarying folicitude, were he to irritate their oppreffor to additional outrages, and to difcourage future refiftance, by a hafty and improvident appeal to the fword.

The unauthorised acts of power have hitherto been fuppofed to take place on the part of the Sovereign. But if either House of Parliament were refolutely to overleap the conftitutional limits of its functions, and to perfift in its ufurpations in defiance of the other branches of the Legislature and of the Nation; the principles which gave birth to the Revolution would in that cafe equally vindicate resistance on the part of those branches and of the people. And the private fubject ought to be governed, as to the exercife of the right, by the confiderations recently stated.

The British nation has likewife retained to itself the right of making any alterations in the Constitution, if extreme emergences should ever occur, which it shall be firmly convinced that the public welfare and fafety require; although

H 2

though the Conftitutional Legislature should

refufe its confent.

It has been afferted by writers, whofe earneftness to avoid one extreme has carried them to another, that the Nation has no fuch right; that the Conftitution was fettled at the Revolution for ever; and that all rights similar to that under confideration, if Englishmen poffelfed them before, were at that period fołemnly renounced and abdicated by our anceflors, not only for themselves, but for all their pofterity to the end of time. This opinion is built upon certain expreffions to be found in the Acts of Parliament paffed in the reign of William and Mary respecting the fucceffion to the crown, and already noticed in a former chapter. To fuppofe however that our ancestors were competent to abdicate the rights of their pofterity, in this or in any respect,

to the end of time," is to fuppofe that they were competent to interfere between their descendants and the Omnipotent; and to preclude them from receiving at his hand the common rights of the human fpecies. It is to fuppofe that one generation may be compe

tent