he utmost detestation and
abhorrence, every position that may shake the authority of that act of
Parliament whereby the crown is settled upon her Majesty, _and whereby
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons do, in the name of all the
people of England, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their
heirs and posterities, to her Majesty_, which this general principle of
absolute non-resistance must certainly shake.

"For, if the resistance at the Revolution was illegal, the Revolution
settled in usurpation, and this act can have no greater force and
authority than an act passed under a usurper.

"And the Commons take leave to observe, that the authority of this
Parliamentary settlement is a matter of the greatest consequence to
maintain, in a case where the hereditary right to the crown is
contested."

"It appears by the several instances mentioned in the act declaring the
rights and liberties of the subject and settling the succession of the
crown, that at the time of the Revolution there was _a total subversion
of the constitution of government both in Church and State, which is a
case that the laws of England could never suppose, provide for, or have
in view._"

* * * * *

Sir Joseph Jekyl, so often quoted, considered the preservation of the
monarchy, and of the rights and prerogatives of the crown, as essential
objects with all sound Whigs, and that they were bound not only to
maintain them, when injured or invaded, but to exert themselves as much
for their reestablishment, if they should happen to be overthrown by
popular fury, as any of their own more immediate and popular rights and
privileges, if the latter should be at any time subverted by the crown.
For this reason he puts the cases of the _Revolution_, and the
_Restoration_ exactly upon the same footing. He plainly marks, that it
was the object of all honest men not to sacrifice one part of the
Constitution to another, and much more, not to sacrifice any of them to
visionary theories of the rights of man, but to preserve our whole
inheritance in the Constitution, in all its members and all its
relations, entire and unimpaired, from generation to generation. In this
Mr. Burke exactly agrees with him.

* * * * *

_Sir Joseph Jekyl._

[Sidenote: What are the rights of the people.]

[Sidenote: Restoration and Revolution.]

[Sidenote: People have an equal interest in the legal ri