Was it that the legislature wanted, at the act
for the limitation of the crown in the Hanoverian line, drawn
through the female descendants of James the First, a due sense of
the inconveniences of having two or three, or possibly more,
foreigners in succession to the British throne? No!- they had a due
sense of the evils which might happen from such foreign rule, and more
than a due sense of them. But a more decisive proof cannot be given of
the full conviction of the British nation that the principles of the
Revolution did not authorize them to elect kings at their pleasure,
and without any attention to the ancient fundamental principles of our
government, than their continuing to adopt a plan of hereditary
Protestant succession in the old line, with all the dangers and all
the inconveniences of its being a foreign line full before their
eyes and operating with the utmost force upon their minds.
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so
capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any
argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now
publicly taught, avowed, and printed. The dislike I feel to
revolutions, the signals for which have so often been given from
pulpits; the spirit of change that is gone abroad; the total
contempt which prevails with you, and may come to prevail with us,
of all ancient institutions when set in opposition to a present
sense of convenience or to the bent of a present inclination: all
these considerations make it not unadvisable, in my opinion, to call
back our attention to the true principles of our own domestic laws;
that you, my French friend, should begin to know, and that we should
continue to cherish them.
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