THIS country is now reduced to a situation really degrading and deplorable, through the strange obstinacy and week prejudices of the King, who is determined, even at the risk of his own safety, the preservation of the king­dom, and contrary to the united voice of his peo­ple, to encourage and protect an abandoned set of men in the destruction of that constitution he was sworn to support and defend.

History fatally informs us, that the English have been driven to extremes, by causes of less moment than those which have shaken this kingdom during the present reign.

Since the last stupendous Revolution, it has been generally believed, that the nature of our constitu­tion [Page 82]became clearly ascertained, and fixed on firmer and more lasting principles than it had known be­fore that glorious aera; at least the obtaining these ends, as well as redressing grievances, are acknow­ledged to be the motives to the transactions of those times. For had the exorbitant power of the crown been left unlimited and unsettled, as before that event, and the liberties and privileges of the sub­jects of England, in the same undecided state; it would have been only to change the name of mas­ters, and not the nature of their sovereignty. And if, instead of removing the cause of our sufferings, and fixing our rights and liberties, we then gave to a House of Commons, an unlimited power to dispose of the last, according to their inclination, it was only changing the possessors of arbitrary power, by granting to a prostituted set of repre­sentatives what was denied the King; and thus this illustrious action of the Revolution must ap­pear to be the result of the faction, and aversion to one interest, or unwarrantable zeal for another. In what manner can a nation be more settled in its freedom, by transferring arbitrary power from one part of the constitution to another.

It cannot be denied, but that the laws, which were then enacted to establish upon a foundation not to be again shaken, the freedom of the English nation, and the liberties of the people ought to be considered, as unalterable, the very basis and boun­dary of the King's prerogative, and the rights of Englishmen, something in the government like the center in the earth, the fixed point, round which all things move, and to which they tend.

Those acts which were made at the Revolution, relative to the constitution, such as the bill of [Page 83]rights, and afterwards in consequence of it the act of settlement, which may be justly deemed the compact between the House of Hanover and the people of England, and which was preserved invi­olate, till broken by the unhallowed hands of the present Sovereign and his ministers, are undoubt­edly of a nature more sacred than those which esta­blished a turnpike road.

Those acts, founded on our former rights in Magna Charta, ought to be considered as the es­sential authority by which the House of Commons exists, than laws which a Parliament may abro­gate, through pure inclination to indulge a King or his Ministers, to make them despotic, and the people miserable; for it must appear strangely ab­surd in a constitution, that the representatives of the people, who form a third part of it, should be authorized by them to destroy their liberties, and thereby exclude them from the rights which they possess in the government of the kingdom? Be­sides, it is contrary to the very idea of a free state, that a people should have given a power of sacri­ficing their privileges to men chosen the guardi­ans of them.

Something must exist in a free state, which no part of it can be authorised to alter or destroy, otherwise the idea of a constitution cannot subsist; for unless we allow the freeholders and electors of Great Britain to be superior to a House of Com­mons, we grant to them an absolute power, a power inconsistent with the notion of a free peo­ple, and destructive of the principles of a mixed government.

Should it be acknowledged, that though the Commons have exercised a power of annihilating many privileges and rights belonging to the peo­ple, [Page 84]and that they possess no legal title to it, then all laws subversive of Magna Charta, the bill of rights, act or settlement, and spirit of the constitution, are an excess of their authority, and a violation of their trust, for which the present infamous parliament ought not only to be dissol­ved, but every member who visibly engaged in the destruction of the peoples rights, should suf­fer death, together with those hellish ministers who formed a design of enslaving the people; and it must be equally just, as well as necessary, to call to a strict account the first magistrate, who could be base enough to encourage the destruction of our liberties, and a subversion of the noblest constitution in the world, as an example to future Kings and ministers.

If any ministerial hireling should assert that our representatives, after the hour of election are no longer answerable for their conduct, and are le­gally invested with authority to destroy our rights and liberties at their pleasure, then what did King James do more than by this his prerogative? And of what advantage has the Revolution proved to us, if subverting the constitution be legally placed in the hands of the representatives? In what sense does the idea of a free state, or the liberty of the people exist, when it depends upon nothing more permanent or established than the vague, rapacious, or interested inclination of a majority of five hundred and fifty eight men, open to the insidious attacks of a weak or design­ing Prince, and his ministers? Surely it will be granted, that whether King or minister, who by undue influence should prevail in passing laws subversive of the statutes before mentioned, must be deemed an offender against the most sacred of [Page 85]all human enjoyments, liberty and the constitu­tion of his country, and equally criminal with James the second and his ministers.

The whole presumptive title a parliament can pretend to have of disposing of our rights and privileges can be but prerogative, which in many instances has been illegally carried beyond the li­mits of liberty and the constitution. It is there­fore necessary we should recur to the spirit of the constitution with the strictest rigour and perseve­rance.

The only reason that can be given, why our forefathers, in the antient fundamental statutes of the realm, have delivered nothing verbally expli­cit on this head of limiting the power of their representatives, derives it origin from the same cause that the Romans had no laws against parri­cide, they never conceived that the thought of betraying or selling a peoples liberties, any more than murdering a father could enter the human heart; they never imagined that the representa­tive could ever possess an interest distinct from that of his constituent, or that pecuniary advan­tage could outweigh the public good in his breast; they did not foresee that ministers might have occasion to oppress us, for the gratification of a weak or wicked Prince; or that Englishmen, no longer animated by the soul of public prosperity, might degenerate into granting oppressive taxes, till the nation would be brought within one step of ruin; or that laws, essential to the establishment of freedom and security of the state, could be made to burst at the mandate of a minister, by the breath of a majority of five hundred and fifty eight men.

[Page 86] When the representatives of the people act con­trary to the very elements of the constitution, betray and give up the rights, privileges, and liberties of the people, though nothing in the fundamental statutes literally prohibit so ignominious a behavi­our; the very nature of their station, the innate sense of right, and original spirit of government, directly contradict all possibility of their having title for such proceedings; and whenever it is done, it is an unjust and wanton exertion of power, and not of authority; add to this dread­ful and heinous crime the indignant and humilia­ting consideration, that our equals whom we choose to serve, have sold us like our cattle to a weak (not to say worse) King, and his accursed ministers, who have paid our betrayers with a part of that money which was most unjustly levied on us, not to answer the necessity of govern­ment, but for the most infamous and villanous purposes.

The particulars mentioned in the bill of rights at the Revolution, were then considered as so many violations committed by King James, on the privileges of the people, and necessary to be remedied for the sake of securing our religion, and re-establishing liberty and the constitution.

The grievances, at that time complained of against the Sovereign, had their foundation in justice, and the rights of the people and the redressing them in the nature of the constitution; otherwise, by what arguments could be assigned a cause of complaint against the Prince on the throne, or preserve those men, who accomplished the Revolution, from the imputation of traitors and rebels to their King.

[Page 87] They considered the constitution as the primary object of an Englishman, and the King but as the secondary; who, by his attempts towards despotism, became a rebel against this superior power. They justly reasoned, that as the people, who made a third of the constitution, are deemed traitors for plotting or attempting the life of, or taking up arms against the King, who forms another third of the constitution, and doomed to death in con­sequence of such behavior, in like manner King JAMES rebelled against two thirds of the go­vernment, by attempting to subvert their religion and liberties; for our constitution supposes, that each part of it has a right to be preserved; that two are more than one, and the happiness of a whole people to be preserved, in preference to the ambition or pernicious passion or designs of a King.

Shall then the present Sovereign and his mini­sters be exempted from a strict and nice inquiry into their conduct, because they have effected in one method the very despotism which was opposed in James, who was deservedly drove into exile, for attempting it in another. Forbid it, Heaven! And every thing that is dear to Englishmen!