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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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non hiemes illam , non ilubra , neque imbres Convellant : immota manet , multosque nepotes , Multa virihn volveus duraudo saecula , viiicit . Virgil .
I have no feeling in common with those persons ( if such there be ) whose hearts beat not high with the love of their country , and who , amidst the unnumbered mercies showered down on Britons , can overlook our civil government , and its bearings on all the great interests of society . Nor can I take a retrospective glance at our late Sovereign ' s reign—a reign so short ,
yet so prolific in national blessings—without gratitude for that free Constitution , which , through a long series of monarchs , and notwithstanding all its real or supposed defects , and whatever be thought of the manner in which it has sometimes been administered , is , I am persuaded , the main instrument of these and of numerous attendant blessings .
It was long believed , and by one class of men studiously urged , that our Constitution and Liberties are of only recent origin ; that , before the abdication of James II ., our monarchs governed chiefly , if not entirely , by their arbitrary will ;* and that until the arrival of the Prince of Orange on our shores British Freedom had no legal existence and establishment . The transactions of the end of the year 1688 , were spoken of as introducing , rather than as asserting , vindicating , guarding , and tending to perpetuate ,
our chartered privileges . When the iron sceptre of one misguided race of our sovereigns was broken , and a crown of pure gold encircled the brows of our third William , such was the transition , that many persons ascribed the new state of things to new principles ; instead of welcoming it , as , in truth , they should have welcomed it , in the Jight of the restoration of violated laws ,
and of almost forgotten rights . Our free government possesses a high intrinsic value , whether its date be ancient or modern . Even if it were but of yesterday's growth , its excellence must still be conspicuous must still be felt . If , however , we find that it belonged , in effect , to our earliest ancestors , then I persuade myself that we shall be the more grateful for its having become the sacred inheritance of their descendants , and shall be the more
vigilant of its purity : if we observe that even in the most stormy periods of our history an appeal was made , and * in common , successfully made , to the principles and spirit of the Constitution , we shall have a stronger assurance that this Constitution will be stable ; that , under successive dynasties and kings , it will continue to receive all the improvements of which it is capable , and that to our posterity it will y ield still richer fruit than what it produces for ourselves .
The government under which our Saxon forefathers lived , was substantially and essentially free . Derived from that of the ancient Germans , so faithfully and so beautifully described by the pen of a masterly historian ,- )* it was the government of laws ; J of laws , too , which , for the most part , had their basis in truth and reason . Thus venerable are our liberties , and the elements and the genius of our civil constitution .
* See , particularly , the statement and the confutation in the Postscri pt to Hurd ' s Dialogues ( 1759 ) . t Tacit , de Mur . German ., § vii . xi ., &c , and Montesquieu ' s Spirit of Laws , B . xi . C . vii .
: Hurd ' s Mor . and Polit . Dial . ( ed . 6 *) , Vol . Ii . 116 , &c .
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ESSAY ON THE PRESERVATION AND IMPROVEMENT OF BRITISH FREEDOM AMIDST SUCCESSIVE DYNASTIES AND REIGNS .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1830, page 665, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2589/page/9/
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