y of the benefits of an
English Constitution. Most certainly, neither with you nor here was any
one ignorant of what was at that time said, written, and done. But on
all sides we separated the means from the end: and we separated the
cause of the moderate and rational from the ill-intentioned and
seditious, which on such occasions are so frequently apt to march
together. At that time, on your part, you were not afraid to review what
was done at the Revolution of 1688, and what had been continued during
the subsequent flourishing period of the British empire. The change then
made was a great and fundamental alteration. In the execution, it was an
operose business on both sides of the water. It required the repeal of
several laws, the modification of many, and a new course to be given to
an infinite number of legislative, judicial, and official practices and
usages in both kingdoms. This did not frighten any of us. You are now
asked to give, in some moderate measure, to your fellow-citizens, what
Great Britain gave to you without any measure at all. Yet,
notwithstanding all the difficulties at the time, and the apprehensions
which some very well-meaning people entertained, through the admirable
temper in which this revolution (or restoration in the nature of a
revolution) was conducted in both kingdoms, it has hitherto produced no
inconvenience to either; and I trust, with the continuance of the same
temper, that it never will. I think that this small, inconsiderable
change, (relative to an exclusive statute not made at the Revolution,)
for restoring the people to the benefits from which the green soreness
of a civil war had not excluded them, will be productive of no sort of
mischief whatsoever. Compare what was done in 1782 with what is wished
in 1792; consider the spirit of what has been done at the several
periods of reformation; and weigh maturely whether it be exactly true
that conciliatory concessions are of good policy only in discussions
between nations, but that among descriptions in the same nation they
must always be irrational and dangerous. What have you suffered in your
peace, your prosperity, or, in what ought ever to be dear to a nation,
your glory, by the last act by which you took the property of that
people under the protection of the _laws_? What reasons have you to
dread the consequences of admitting the people possessing that property
to some share in the protection of the _Constitution_?

I do not