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These views of the prince were seconded by the princess herself; who, as she possessed many virtues, was a most obsequious wife to a husband who, in the judgment of the generality of her sex, would have appeared so little attractive and amiable. All considerations were neglected, when they came in competition with what she deemed her duty to the prince. When Danby and others of her partisans wrote her an account of their schemes and proceedings, she expressed great displeasure; and even transmitted their letters to her husband, as a sacrifice to conjugal fidelity. The princess Anne also concurred in the same plan for the public settlement; and being promised an ample revenue, was content to be postponed in the succession to the crown. And as the title of her infant brother was, in the present establishment, entirely neglected, she might, on the whole, deem herself, in point of interest, a gainer by this revolution.

The chief parties, therefore, being agreed, the convention passed a bill, in which they settled the crown on the prince and princess of Orange, the sole administration to remain in the prince: the princess of Denmark to succeed after the death of the prince and princess of Orange; her posterity after those of the princess, but before those of the prince by any other wife. The convention annexed to this settlement of the crown a declaration of rights, where all the points which had of late years been disputed between the king and people, were finally determined; and the powers of royal prerogative were more narrowly circumscribed and more exactly defined, than in any former period of the English government.

Thus have we seen, through the course of four reigns, a continual struggle maintained between the crown and the people: privilege and prerogative were ever at variance: and both parties, beside the present object of dispute, had many latent claims, which, on a favorable occasion, they produced against their adversaries. Governments too steady and uniform as they are seldom free, so are they, in the judgment of some attended with another sensible inconvenience: they abate the active powers of men; depress courage, invention, and genius; and produce a universal lethargy in the people. Though this opinion may be just, the fluctuation and contest, it must be allowed, of the English government, were, during these reigns, much too violent both for the repose and safety of the people. Foreign affairs, at that time, were either entirely neglected, or managed to pernicious purposes: and in the domestic administration there was felt a continued fever, either secret or manifest; sometimes the most furious convulsions and disorders. The revolution forms a new epoch in the constitution; and was probably attended with consequences more advantageous to the people, than barely freeing them from an exceptionable administration. By deciding many important questions in favor of liberty, and still more by that great precedent of deposing one king, and establishing a new family, it gave such an ascendant to popular principles, as has put the nature of the English constitution beyond all controversy. And it may justly be affirmed, without any danger of exaggeration, that we in this island have ever since enjoyed, if not the best system of government, at least the most entire system of liberty, that ever was known amongst mankind.

To decry with such violence, as is affected by some, the whole line of Stuart; to maintain, that their administration was one continued encroachment on the incontestable rights of the people; is not giving due honor to that great event, which not only put a period to their hereditary succession, but made a new settlement of the whole constitution. The inconveniencies suffered by the people under the two first reigns of that family, (for in the main they were fortunate,) proceeded in a great measure from the unavoidable situation of affairs; and scarcely any thing could have prevented those events, but such vigor of genius in the sovereign, attended with such good fortune, as might have enabled him entirely to overpower the liberties of his people. While the parliaments in those reigns were taking advantage of the necessities of the prince, and attempting every session to abolish, or circumscribe, or define, some prerogative of the crown, and innovate in the usual tenor of government, what could be expected, but that the prince would exert himself in defending, against such inveterate enemies an authority which, during the most regular course of the former English government, had been exercised without dispute or controversy? And though Charles II., in 1672, may with reason be deemed the aggressor, nor is it possible to justify his conduct, yet were there some motives, surely, which could engage a prince so soft and indolent, and at the same time so judicious, to attempt such hazardous enterprises. He felt that public affairs had reached a situation at which they could not possibly remain without some further innovation. Frequent parliaments were become almost absolutely necessary to the conducting of public business; yet these assemblies were still, in the judgment of the royalists, much inferior in dignity to the sovereign, whom they seemed better calculated to counsel than control. The crown still possessed considerable power of opposing parliaments; and had not as yet acquired the means of influencing them. Hence a continual jealousy between these parts of the legislature: hence the inclination mutually to take advantage of each other’s necessities: hence the impossibility, under which the king lay, of finding ministers who could at once be serviceable and faithful to him. If he followed his own choice in appointing his servants, without regard to their parliamentary interest, a refractory session was instantly to be expected: if he chose them from among the leaders of popular assemblies, they either lost their influence with the people by adhering to the crown, or they betrayed the crown in order to preserve their influence. Neither Hambden, whom Charles I. was willing to gain at any price; nor Shaftesbury, whom Charles II., after the Popish plot, attempted to engage in his counsels, would renounce their popularity for the precarious, and, as they esteemed it, deceitful favor of the prince. The root of their authority they still thought to lie in the parliament; and as the power of that assembly was not yet uncontrollable, they still resolved to augment it, though at the expense of the royal prerogatives.

It is no wonder that these events have long, by the representations of faction, been extremely clouded and obscured. No man has yet arisen, who has paid an entire regard to truth, and has dared to expose her, without covering or disguise, to the eyes of the prejudiced public. Even that party amongst us which boasts of the highest regard to liberty, has not possessed sufficient liberty of thought in this particular; nor has been able to decide impartially of their own merit, compared with that of their antagonists. More noble perhaps in their ends, and highly beneficial to mankind they must also be allowed to have often been less justifiable in the means, and in many of their enterprises to have paid more regard to political than to moral considerations. Obliged to court the favor of the populace, they found it necessary to comply with their rage and folly; and have even, on many occasions, by propagating calumnies, and by promoting violence, served to infatuate as well as corrupt that people to whom they made a tender of liberty and justice. Charles I. was a tyrant, a Papist, and a contriver of the Irish massacre: the church of England was relapsing fast into idolatry: Puritanism was the only true religion, and the covenant the favorite object of heavenly regard. Through these delusions the party proceeded, and, what may seem wonderful, still to the increase of law and liberty; till they reached the imposture of the Popish plot, a fiction which exceeds the ordinary bounds of vulgar credulity. But however singular these events may appear, there is really nothing altogether new in any period of modern history: and it is remarkable, that tribunitian arts, though sometimes useful in a free constitution, have usually been such as men of probity and honor could not bring themselves either to practise or approve. The other faction, which, since the revolution, has been obliged to cultivate popularity, sometimes found it necessary to employ like artifices.