,
applied to the House of Tudor, of York, or any other of their
predecessors?

The simple state of the case, Sir, seems to be this:--At that period,
the science of government, the knowledge of the true relation between
king and subject, was, like other sciences and other knowledge, just
in its infancy, emerging from dark ages of ignorance and barbarity.

The Stewarts only contended for prerogatives which they knew their
predecessors enjoyed, and which they saw their contemporaries
enjoying; but these prerogatives were inimical to the happiness of a
nation and the rights of subjects.

In the contest between prince and people, the consequence of that
light of science which had lately dawned over Europe, the monarch of
France, for example, was victorious over the struggling liberties of
his people: with us, luckily the monarch failed, and his unwarrantable
pretensions fell a sacrifice to our rights and happiness. Whether it
was owing to the wisdom of leading individuals, or to the justling
of parties, I cannot pretend to determine; but likewise happily for
us, the kingly power was shifted into another branch of the family,
who, as they owed the throne solely to the call of a free people,
could claim nothing inconsistent with the covenanted terms which
placed them there.

The Stewarts have been condemned and laughed at for the folly and
impracticability of their attempts in 1715 and 1745. That they failed,
I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them.
Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and
commanders are often hidden until put to the touchstone of exigency;
and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence in particular
accidents and conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as heroes,
or brand us as madmen, just as they are for or against us?

Man, Mr. Publisher, is a strange, weak, inconsistent being; who would
believe, Sir, that in this our Augustan age of liberality and
refinement, while we seem so justly sensible and jealous of our rights
and liberties, and animated with such indignation against the very
memory of those who would have subverted them--that a certain people
under our national protection should complain, not against our monarch
and a few favorite advisers, but against our WHOLE LEGISLATIVE
BODY, for similar oppression, and almost in the very same terms,
as our forefathers did of the house of Stewart! I will not, I cannot
enter into the merits of the cau