demning the principles, upon which it was effected. I fhould not hold myself juftifi

*

able in drawing a veil over the one or over the other. I moft ftrongly, therefore, reprobate the idea of the rights of the people of England being weakened by any of the circumftances that attended the revolution, or that any poffible act of the legislature could render the principles, upon which the revolution was effected, lefs operative in future than they had before been.

The before mentioned declaration by the national convention of the circumftances, that on this occafion fummoned them to the exercife of their inherent and indefeasible rights, which I call the verdict of the nation, so far from being calculated to fupprefs or diffemble the matter of fact, appears to have been worded with the moft cautious intention of handing down to the latest posterity a full and faithful statement of the facts, which induced them to make, and would induce pofterity to approve of and support thefe alterations in the conftitution and government of the country. They make this expofition, or rather boaft, of the circumStances, as tending to vivify and confirm, not to

*Mr. Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 25.

Our ancestors

were anxious

to deliver down

their reafons

for effecting the

revolution.

*

weaken the rights, which, in the meliorated order of fucceffion, they meant to perpetuate; and the acts, which they engrafted upon this declaration, are the strongest evidence of our ancestor's wishes to keep alive and active the principles, upon which they passed them. Some perfons may also formerly have been prepoffeffed of the idea, that the revolution was "an act of neceffity, in the strictest moral sense, in which neceffity can be taken; and that it should never † furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they had then fettled for ever." Through fear and anxiety therefore, left in these prepoffeffions the genuine principles of the revolution might merge and become extinguifhed, the nation at different times has taken the most effectual means to perpetuate the spirit and principles of the revolution to their latest pofterity, whom they endeavoured at the same time by all poffible means to fecure against the occafions of calling them into action.

It appears from hiftory, that during the reign of queen Anne, many complaints were made by the bifhops in particular, of the increase of diffenters, and of the licentious and rebellious doctrines preached by feveral

Burke, ubi fupra.

+ Ibidem.

of

of the clergy; by which they would infer, that the church of England was brought into great danger: and very strong attempts were made from the pulpits and elsewhere, to inculcate into the people tory principles and doctrines, which militated directly against those whig principles, upon which the revolution was brought about and established. These matters were warmly debated in the house of peers; * and Lord Somers took a leading part in them. These perfons, as Mr. Burke obferves, † "had many of them an active share in the revolution, most of them had seen it at an age capable of reflection. The grand event and all the difcuffions, which led to it and followed it, were then alive in the memory and conversation of all men." The public fteps, which were then taken by the nation, were probably fuggefted and recommended by Lord Somers, and they certainly were not grounded upon the idea of our having renounced any rights at the revolution; on the contrary, they were adopted for the exprefs and avowed purposes of keeping alive the genuine conftitutional principles, upon which the right of the people to alter

* Vid. Hift. and Proceedings of the House of Lords, vol. ii. p. 154, & feq. 4 Anne.

Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, p. 55.

Attempts to

abolish the re

volution prin

ciples, by the

propagation of

tory principles.

Declaration of

the nation that

the revolution

neither preju

principles were

dicial to church

or ftate.

1

the fucceffion and government was exercifed at the revolution, and upon the prefumption, that the church of England could not be brought into danger by the propagation and maintenance of those principles.

The first of these steps was the introduction of the before mentioned clause into the act (4 Ann. c. viii.) for the better security of her majesty's perfon and government, and of the fucceffion to the crown of England in the proteftant line, which makes it high treason to deny to the people, by their representatives in parliament, the right or power to limit, as they should think proper, the descent, inheritance, and government of the crown. The fecond was the royal proclamation made on the 20th Dec. 1705, in confequence of and in order to publish to the nation the joint vote of both houses of parliament, that the church was not in danger. And the proclamation contains her majefty's declaration, that she would proceed with the utmost severity the law fhould allow of, against the authors or fpreaders of fuch feditious and fcandalous reports. In the fixth year of her faid majefty's reign, after the union, this claufe of high treafon for denying the right of parliament to new model the fucceffion, was

was again enacted and extended to Scotland.

After these two folemn acts of the nation, it fhould feem, that nothing was left to be done, in order to give permanency and vigor to the principles, upon which the revolution was effected. "It rarely happens to a

Sacheverel's

trial inftituted

party to have the opportunity of a clear, authentic, recorded declaration of their political tenets upon the subject of a great conftitutional event, like that of the revolution. The whigs had that opportunity, or, to speak more properly, they made it. The impeachment of Dr. Sacheverel was undertaken by a whig ministry, and a whig house of commons, and carried on before a prevalent and fteady majority of whig peers. It was carried on for the exprefs purpose of stating for the direct the true grounds and principles of the revolution, what the commons emphatically called their foundation. It was carried on for the purpose of condemning the principles, on which the revolution was firft opposed, and afterwards calumniated, in order, by a juridical fentence of the highest authority, to confirm and fix whig principles, as they had operated both in the refiftance to king James,

* Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, p. 54, 55.

purpose of ma

nifefting the

true fpirit of the revolution.