over, or to impose
a king upon the nation against its will). And this must be the utmost
limit to which Parliament can go upon this case; but the right of the
Nation goes to the whole case, because it has the right of changing its
whole form of government. The right of a Parliament is only a right in
trust, a right by delegation, and that but from a very small part of the
Nation; and one of its Houses has not even this. But the right of the
Nation is an original right, as universal as taxation. The nation is
the paymaster of everything, and everything must conform to its general
will.

I remember taking notice of a speech in what is called the English House
of Peers, by the then Earl of Shelburne, and I think it was at the time
he was Minister, which is applicable to this case. I do not directly
charge my memory with every particular; but the words and the purport,
as nearly as I remember, were these: "That the form of a Government was
a matter wholly at the will of the Nation at all times, that if it chose
a monarchical form, it had a right to have it so; and if it afterwards
chose to be a Republic, it had a right to be a Republic, and to say to a
King, 'We have no longer any occasion for you.'"

When Mr. Burke says that "His Majesty's heirs and successors, each in
their time and order, will come to the crown with the same content of
their choice with which His Majesty had succeeded to that he wears," it
is saying too much even to the humblest individual in the country;
part of whose daily labour goes towards making up the million sterling
a-year, which the country gives the person it styles a king. Government
with insolence is despotism; but when contempt is added it becomes
worse; and to pay for contempt is the excess of slavery. This species
of government comes from Germany; and reminds me of what one of the
Brunswick soldiers told me, who was taken prisoner by, the Americans
in the late war: "Ah!" said he, "America is a fine free country, it is
worth the people's fighting for; I know the difference by knowing my
own: in my country, if the prince says eat straw, we eat straw."
God help that country, thought I, be it England or elsewhere, whose
liberties are to be protected by German principles of government, and
Princes of Brunswick!

As Mr. Burke sometimes speaks of England, sometimes of France, and
sometimes of the world, and of government in general, it is difficult
to answer his book without apparently meetin