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CHAPTER the question is clearly, forcibly, and, I think, convincingly, stated by Rapin, who exposes very ably the extreme folly of trusting to measures, without consideration of the men who are to execute them. Even in Hume's statement of the question, whatever may have been his intention, the arguments in favour of the exclusion appear to me greatly to preponderate. Indeed it is not easy to conceive upon what principles even the Tories could justify their support of the restrictions. Many among them, no doubt, saw the provisions in the same light in which the Whigs represented them, as an expedient, admirably indeed adapted to the real object of upholding the present King's power, by the defeat of the exclusion, but never likely to take effect for their pretended purpose of controuling that of his successour; and supported them for that very reason. But such a principle of conduct was too fraudulent to be avowed; nor ought it perhaps, in candour, to be imputed to the majority of the party. To those who acted with good faith, and meant that the restrictions should really take place, and be effectual, surely it ought to have occurred, (and to those who most prized the prerogatives of the crown, it ought most forcibly to have occurred,) that in consenting to curtail the powers of the crown, rather than to

I.

alter the succession, they were adopting the greater, CHAPTER in order to avoid the lesser evil. The question of, what are to be the powers of the crown, is surely of superiour importance to that of, who shall wear it? Those, at least, who consider the royal prerogative as vested in the King, not for his sake, but for that of his subjects, must consider the one of these questions as much above the other in dignity, as the rights of the public are more valuable than those of an individual. In this view the prerogatives of the crown are in substance and effect the rights of the people; and these rights of the people were not to be sacrificed to the purpose of preserving the succession to the most favoured prince, much less to one who, on account of his religious persuasion, was justly feared and suspected. In truth, the question between the exclusion' and restrictions seems peculiarly calculated to ascertain the different views in which the different parties in this country have seen, and perhaps ever will see, the prerogatives of the crown. The Whigs, who consider them as a trust for the people, a doctrine which the Tories themselves, when pushed in argument, will sometimes admit, naturally think it their duty rather to change the manager of the trust, than to impair the subject of it; while others, who consider them as

G

CHAPTER the right or property of the King, will as naturally I. act as they would do in the case of any other property, and consent to the loss or annihilation of any part of it, for the purpose of preserving the remainder to him, whom they style the rightful owner. If the people be the sovereign, and the King the delegate, it is better to change the bailiff than to injure the farm; but if the King be the proprietor, it is better the farm should be impaired, nay, part of it destroyed, than that the whole should pass over to an usurper. The royal prerogative ought, according to the Whigs, (not in the case of a Popish successour only, but in all cases,) to be reduced to such powers as are in their exercise beneficial to the people; and of the benefit of these they will not rashly suffer the people to be deprived, whether the executive power be in the hands of an hereditary, or of an elected king; of a regent, or of any other denomination of magistrate; while on the other hand, they who consider prerogative with reference only to royalty, will, with equal readiness, consent either to the extension or the suspension of its exercise, as the occasional interests of the prince may seem to require. The senseless plea of a divine and indefesible right in James, which even the legislature was incompetent to set aside, though as

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inconsistent with the declarations of Parliament in CHAPTER the Statute Book, and with the whole practice of the English Constitution, as it is repugnant to nature and common sense, was yet warmly insisted upon by the high-church party. Such an argument, as might naturally be expected, operated rather to provoke the Whigs to perseverance, than to dissuade them from their measure: it was, in their eyes, an additional merit belonging to the Exclusion Bill, that it strengthened, by one instance more, the authority of former statutes, in reprobating a doctrine which seems to imply, that man can have a property in his fellow-creatures. By far the best argument in favour of the restrictions, is the practical one, that they could be obtained, and that the exclusion could not; but the value of this argument is chiefly proved by the event. The Exclusionists had a fair prospect of success, and their plan being clearly the best, they were justified in pursuing it.

The spirit of resistance which the King showed in the instance of the Militia and the Exclusion Bills, seems to have been systematically confined to those cases where he supposed his power to be more immediately concerned. In the prosecution of the Prosecution aged and innocent Lord Stafford, he was so far from interfering in behalf of that nobleman, that many of

of Stafford.

CHAPTER those most in his confidence, and, as it is affirmed, I. the Duchess of Portsmouth herself, openly favoured

the prosecution. Even after the dissolution of his last Parliament, when he had so far subdued his enemies as to be no longer under any apprehensions from them, he did not think it worth while to save the life of Plunket, the Popish Archbishop of Armagh, of whose innocence no doubt could be entertained. But this is not to be wondered at, since, in all transactions relative to the Popish Plot, minds of a very different cast from Charles's became, as by some fatality, divested of all their wonted sentiments of justice and humanity. Who can read without horrour, the account of that savage murmur of applause, which broke out upon one of the villains at the bar, swearing positively to Stafford's having proposed the murder of the King? And how is this horrour deepened, when we reflect, that in that odious cry were probably mingled the voices of men to whose memory every lover of the English constitution is bound to pay the tribute of gratitude and respect! Even after condemnation, Lord Russel himself, whose character is wholly (this instance excepted) free from the stain of rancour or cruelty, stickled for the severer mode of executing the sentence, in a manner which his fear of the King's establishing