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The English convention was assembled; and it immediately appeared, that the house of commons, both from the prevailing humor of the people, and from the influence of present authority, were mostly chosen from among the whig party.

After thanks were unanimously given by both houses to the prince of Orange for the deliverance which he had brought them, a less decisive vote than that of the Scottish convention was in a few days passed by a great majority of the commons, and sent up to the peers for their concurrence. It was contained in these words: “That King James II., having endeavored to subvert the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between king and people; and having, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself out of the kingdom; has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant.” This vote, when carried to the upper house, met with great opposition; of which it is here necessary for us to explain the causes.

The tories and the high church party, finding themselves at once menaced with a subversion of the laws and of their religion, had zealously promoted the national revolt, and had on this occasion departed from those principles of non-resistance, of which, while the king favored them, they had formerly made such loud professions. Their present apprehensions had prevailed over their political tenets; and the unfortunate James, who had too much trusted to those general declarations, which never will be reduced to practice, found, in the issue, that both parties were secretly united against him. But no sooner was the danger past, and the general fears somewhat allayed, than party prejudices resumed, in some degree, their former authority; and the tories were abashed at that victory which their antagonists, during the late transactions, had obtained over them. They were inclined, therefore, to steer a middle course; and, though generally determined to oppose the king’s return, they resolved not to consent to dethroning him, or altering the line of succession. A regent with kingly power was the expedient which they proposed; and a late instance in Portugal seemed to give some authority and precedent to that plan of government.

In favor of this scheme, the tories urged that, by the uniform tenor of the English laws the title to the crown was ever regarded as sacred, and could on no account, and by no maleadministration, be forfeited by the sovereign: that to dethrone a king and to elect his successor, was a practice quite unknown to the constitution, and had a tendency to render kingly power entirely dependent and precarious: that where the sovereign, from his tender years, from lunacy, or from other natural infirmity, was incapacitated to hold the reins of government, both the laws and former practice agreed in appointing a regent, who, during the interval, was invested with the whole power of the administration: that the inveterate and dangerous prejudices of King James had rendered him as unfit to sway the English sceptre, as if he had fallen into lunacy; and it was therefore natural for the people to have recourse to the same remedy: that the election of one king was a precedent for the election of another; and the government, by that means, would either degenerate into a republic, or, what was worse, into a turbulent and seditious monarchy: that the case was still more dangerous, if there remained a prince who claimed the crown by right of succession, and disputed, on so plausible a ground, the title of the present sovereign: that though the doctrine of non-resistance might not, in every possible circumstance, be absolutely true, yet was the belief of it very expedient; and to establish a government which should have the contrary principle for its basis, was to lay a foundation for perpetual revolutions and convulsions: that the appointment of a regent was indeed exposed to many inconveniencies; but so long as the line of succession was preserved entire, there was still a prospect of putting an end, some time or other, to the public disorders: and that scarcely an instance occurred in history, especially in the English history, where a disputed title had not, in the issue, been attended with much greater ills, than all those which the people had sought to shun by departing from the lineal successor.

The leaders of the whig party, on the other hand, asserted that if there were any ill in the precedent, that ill would result as much from establishing a regent, as from dethroning one king and appointing his successor; nor would the one expedient, if wantonly and rashly embraced by the people, be less the source of public convulsions than the other: that it the laws gave no express permission to depose the sovereign, neither did they authorize resisting his authority, or separating the power from the title: that a regent was unknown, except where the king, by reason of his tender age or his infirmities, was incapable of a will; and in that case, his will was supposed to be involved in that of the regent; that it would be the height of absurdity to try a man for acting upon a commission received from a prince whom we ourselves acknowledge to be the lawful sovereign; and no jury would decide so contrary both to law and common sense, as to condemn such a pretended criminal: that even the prospect of being delivered from this monstrous inconvenience was, in the present situation of affairs, more distant than that of putting an end to a disputed succession: that allowing the young prince to be the legitimate heir, he had been carried abroad; he would be educated in principles destructive of the constitution and established religion: and he would probably leave a son liable to the same insuperable objection: that if the whole line were cut off by law, the people would in time forget or neglect their claim; an advantage which could not be hoped for while the administration was conducted in their name, and while they were still acknowledged to possess the legal title: and that a nation thus perpetually governed by regents or protectors, approached much nearer to a republic, than one subject to monarchs whose hereditary regular succession, as well as present authority, was fixed and appointed by the people.

This question was agitated with great zeal by the opposite parties in the house of peers. The chief speakers among the tories were Clarendon, Rochester, and Nottingham; among the whigs, Halifax and Danby. The question was carried for a king by two voices only, fifty-one against forty-nine. All the prelates, except two, the bishops of London and Bristol, voted for a regent. The primate, a disinterested but pusillanimous man, kept at a distance both from the prince’s court and from parliament.

The house of peers proceeded next to examine piecemeal the votes sent up to them by the commons. They debated, “Whether there were an original contract between king and people?” and the affirmative was carried by fifty-three against forty-six: a proof that the tories were already losing ground. The next question was, “Whether King James had broken that original contract?” and, after a slight opposition, the affirmative prevailed. The lords proceeded to take into consideration the word abdicated; and it was carried that deserted was more proper. The concluding question was, “Whether King James having broken the original contract, and deserted the government, the throne was thereby vacant?” This question was debated with more heat and contention than any of the former; and upon a division, the tories prevailed by eleven voices, and it was carried to omit the last article with regard to the vacancy of the throne. The vote was sent back to the commons with these amendments.

The earl of Danby had entertained the project of bestowing the crown solely upon the princess of Orange, and of admitting her as hereditary legal successor to King James[*] passing by the infant prince, as illegitimate or supposititious. His change of party in the last question gave the tories so considerable a majority in the number of voices.