the fame contempt of their choice with which his majefty has fucceeded to that he wears.

Whatever may be the fuccefs of evafion in explaining away the grofs error of fact, which fupposes that his majefty (though he holds it in concurrence with the wifhes) owes his crown to the choice of his people, yet nothing can evade their full explicit declaration, concerning the principle of a right in the people to choose, which right is directly maintained, and tenaciously adhered to. All the oblique infinuations concerning election bottom in this propofition, and are referable to it. Left the foundation of the king's exclufive legal title fhould pass for a mere rant of adulatory freedom, the political Divine proceeds dogmatically to affert*, that by the principles of the Revolution the people of England have acquired three fundamental rights, all which, with him, compofe one system, and lie together in one fhort fentence; namely, that we have acquired a right

1. "To choose our own governors." 2. "To cafhier them for misconduct." 3. To frame a government for ourselves.' This new, and hitherto unheard-of bill of rights, though made in the name of the whole people, belongs to thofe gentlemen and their faction only. The body of the people of England have no fhare in it. They utterly difcaim it. They

*P. 34, Difcourfe on the Love of our Country, by Dr. Price.

will

will refift the practical affertion of it with their lives and fortunes. They are bound to do fo by the laws of their country, made at the time of that very Revolution, which is appealed to in favour of the fictitious rights claimed by the fociety which abufes its name.

Thefe gentlemen of the Old Jewry, in all their reasonings on the Revolution of 1688, have a revolution which happened in England about forty years before, and the late French revolution, fo much before their eyes, and in their hearts, that they are conftantly confounding all the three together. It is neceffary that we should feparate what they confound. We must recall their erring fancies to the acts of the Revolution which we revere, for the difcovery of its true principles. If the principles of the Revolution of 1688 are any where to be found, it is in the ftatute called the Declaration of Right. In that most wife, fober, and confiderate declaration, drawn up by great lawyers and great statesmen, and not by warm and inexperienced enthusiasts, not one word is faid, nor one fuggeftion made, of a general right "to choose our own governors; to cashier them for "mifconduct; and to form a government for oursr felves."

This Declaration of Right (the act of the 1st of William and Mary, feff. 2. ch. 2.) is the cornerstone of our conftitution, as reinforced, explained, improved, and in its fundamental principles for ever fettled. It is called "An act for declaring the rights and liberties of the fubject, and for

«< fettling the fucceffion of the crown."

You will observe, that these rights and this fucceffion, are declared in one body, and bound indiffolubly together.

A few years after this period, a fecond opportunity offered for afferting a right of election to the crown. On the profpect of a total failure of iffue from King William, and from the Princess, afterwards Queen Anne, the confideration of the fettlement of the crown, and of a further fecurity for the liberties of the people, again came before the legislature. Did they this fecond time make any provifion for legalizing the crown on the fpurious Revolution principles of the Old Jewry? No. They followed the principles which prevailed in the Declaration of Right; indicating with more precifion the perfons who were to inherit in the Proteftant line. This act alfo incorporated, by the fame policy, our liberties, and an hereditary fucceffion in the fame act. Inftead of a right to choose our own governors, they declared that the fucceffion in that line (the proteftant line drawn from James the Firft) was abfolutely neceffary" for the peace, quiet, and fecurity of the "realm," and that it was equally urgent on them "to maintain a certainty in the fucceffion thereof, "to which the fubjects may fafely have re"course for their protection." Both thefe acts, in which are heard the unerring, unambiguous oracles of Revolution policy, instead of countenancing the delufive, gypfey predictions of " right to choose our governors," prove to a demonftration

a

a demonstration how totally adverfe the wisdom of the nation was from turning a cafe of neceffity into a rule of law.

Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the ftrict order of a regular hereditary fucceffion; but it is againft all genuine principles of jurifprudence to draw a principle from a law made in a special case, and regarding an individual perfon. Privilegium non tranfit in exemplum. If ever there was a time favourable for eftablishing the principle, that a king of popular choice was the only legal king, without all doubt it was at the Revolution. Its not being done at that time is a proof that the nation was of opinion it ought not to be done at any time. There is no perfon fo completely ignorant of our hiftory, as not to know, that the majority in parliament of both parties were fo little difpofed to any thing resembling that principle, that at firft they were determined to place the vacant crown, not on the head of the prince of Orange, but on that of his wife Mary, daughter of King James, the eldest born of the iffue of that king, which they acknowledged as undoubtedly his. It would be to repeat a very trite ftory, to recall to your memory all those circumstances which demonftrated that their accepting King William was not properly a choice; but, to all thofe who did not wish, in effect to recall King James, or to deluge their country in blood, and again to bring their religion, laws,

and liberties into the peril they had just escaped, it was an act of neceffity, in the ftrictest moral sense in which neceffity can be taken.

In the very act, in which for a time, and in a fingle cafe, parliament departed from the ftrict order of inheritance, in favour of a prince, who, though not next, was however very near in the line of fucceffion, it is curious to observe how Lord Somers, who drew the bill called the Declaration of Right, has comported himfelf on that delicate occafion. It is curious to obferve with what addrefs this temporary folution of continuity is kept from the eye; whilst all that could be found in this act of néceffity to countenance the idea of an hereditary fucceffion is brought forward, and foftered, and made the most of, by this great man, and by the legislature who followed him. Quitting the dry, imperative ftyle of an act of parliament, he makes the lords and commons fall to a pious, legislative ejaculation, and declare, that they confider it as a marvellous providence, and merciful goodness of God to this nation, "to preferve their faid majefties royal perfons, "moft happily to reign over us on the throne of "their ancestors, for which, from the bottom of "their hearts, they return their humbleft thanks "and praifes."-The legislature plainly had in view the act of recognition of the first of Queen Elizabeth, Chap. 3d, and of that of James the First, Chap. 1ft, both acts ftrongly declaratory of the inheritable nature of the crown; and in many parts