are witnesses, and must remember
the _necessities_ of those times which brought about the Revolution:
that _no other_ remedy was left to preserve our religion and liberties;
_that resistance was_ necessary, _and consequently just_."

"Had the Doctor, in the remaining part of his sermon, preached up peace,
quietness, and the like, and shown how happy we are under her Majesty's
administration, and exhorted obedience to it, he had never been called
to answer a charge at your Lordships' bar. But the tenor of all his
subsequent discourse is one continued invective against the government."

* * * * *

Mr. Walpole (afterwards Sir Robert) was one of the managers on this
occasion. He was an honorable man and a sound Whig. He was not, as the
Jacobites and discontented Whigs of his time have represented him, and
as ill-informed people still represent him, a prodigal and corrupt
minister. They charged him, in their libels and seditious conversations,
as having first reduced corruption to a system. Such was their cant. But
he was far from governing by corruption. He governed by party
attachments. The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable to
him, perhaps, than to any minister who ever served the crown for so
great a length of time. He gained over very few from the opposition.
Without being a genius of the first class, he was an intelligent,
prudent, and safe minister. He loved peace, and he helped to communicate
the same disposition to nations at least as warlike and restless as that
in which he had the chief direction of affairs. Though he served a
master who was fond of martial fame, he kept all the establishments very
low. The land tax continued at two shillings in the pound for the
greater part of his administration. The other impositions were moderate.
The profound repose, the equal liberty, the firm protection of just
laws, during the long period of his power, were the principal causes of
that prosperity which afterwards took such rapid strides towards
perfection, and which furnished to this nation ability to acquire the
military glory which it has since obtained, as well as to bear the
burdens, the cause and consequence of that warlike reputation. With many
virtues, public and private, he had his faults; but his faults were
superficial. A careless, coarse, and over-familiar style of discourse,
without sufficient regard to persons or occasions, and an almost total
want of political