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HEN I profefs to have undertaken The impor the arduous task of difcuffing the Rights of Englishmen, I fhudder at every view, which presents itself, in the vaft variety of difficulties, that threaten me in the execution. of the defign. The magnitude and importance of the subject call aloud for the exertions of every man, who makes his country's cause his own. No fubject fo deeply affects us as citizens; no fubject, in so short a period, ever produced fuch a variety of difcuffions, differtations, and arguments; and I fear, that I am but too fully warranted in afferting, that no fubject has ever been more misconceived, more mifrepresented, more mifapplied. When we see men of the most enlightened minds differ fo widely upon principles apparently clear and uncontrovertible; when we` read works of great erudition and strength of argument written upon these principles, to inculcate doctrines the moft repugnant and Misconception, mifreprefenta tion, and mifaplication of the principles. Apology for this publication. contradictory; when, in the various revolutions of empires, we fee the most opposite effects produced by these very principles, what other conclufion can be drawn, than that the principles themselves have been mifconceived, misrepresented, and mifapplied? It would derogate from the dignity of the fubject under our confideration, were I to defcend into perfonal altercation or controverfy with the different perfons, who have already, by their publications, taken a decifive part in the agitation of the question: a question the moft elevated, dignified, and important, that can employ the mind of man, as it most effentially affects his happiness, welfare, and existence, in this ftate of mortality. An eloquent writer has afforded me a most confolatory apology for offering to the public my humble efforts, after the exertion of fo many others of fuperior talents, information, and experience *. "Too many "minds cannot be employed on a contro verfy fo immenfe, as to prefent the most "various afpects to different understandings, "and fo important, that the more correct. "statement of one fact, or the more fuccefs"ful illustration of one argument, will at Mr. Macintosh's Advertisement to his Vindicia Gallice: "leaft "least rescue a book from the imputation of "having been written in vain." In the combination of the political circumstances of the prefent day, I know not how I can render a more effential fervice to my country, than by endeavouring faithfully to reprefent, and ftrongly to impress the minds of my countrymen with the true genuine principles of the Rights of Man; for upon this bafis hath been raised the most brilliant and ftupendous work of human œconomy, the bleffed and glorious conftitution of the British empire. The great Chancellor Fortescue entertained fo fublime an idea of it, as early as in the fourteenth century, that he said: "And for the fame " reason it is, that † St. Thomas is fuppofed " to wish, that all the kingdoms and nations "in the world were governed, in the politi"cal way, as we are." And the fame learned Chancellor, in the inftructions, which he gave to his royal pupil Prince Edward, the eldest son of King Henry the Sixth, carries his encomium of our laws and conftitution to the very highest poffible hyperbole +: Rejoice, therefore, my good Prince, that * De Laud. Leg. Ang. c. xxxvii. p. 86: + This idea of St. Thomas Aquinas is taken from his book De Regimine Principum. De Laud. Leg. Ang. c. ix. p. 18. "fuch |