The Duke of Monmouth, in his declaration against James the Second, seems to allow the existence of meetings to consult of extraordinary, yet lawful, means, to rescue our religion and liberties from the hands of violence, when all ordinary means, according to the laws, were denied and obstructed.

We may now, upon the whole, conclude, that the consultations in which Lord Russell took a part, related to the means of resisting the government, but that no plan of rebellion was any wise matured.

In the examination which I have made into the truth of the Rye-House plot, I have placed

another's; for I dare say, as he could discern, he never went into any thing considerable, upon the mere submission to any one's particular judgment. Now his own, I know, he could never have framed to have thought well of the late actings, and therefore most probably must have sat loose from them. But I am afraid his excellent heart, had he lived, would have been often pierced from the time his life was taken away to this. On the other hand, having, I trust, a reasonable ground of hope he has found those mercies he died with a cheerful persuasion he should, there is no reason to mourn my loss, when that soul I loved so well lives in felicities, and shall do so to all eternity. This I know in reason should be my cure; but flesh and blood in this mixed state is such a slave to sense, the memory how I have lived, and how (as I think) I must ever do for the time to come, does so prevail and weaken my most Christian resolves, that I cannot act the part that mere philosophy, as you set down many instances, enabled many to an appearance of easiness; for I verily believe they had no more than me, but vainly affected it."

no reliance on the authorities of Lord Grey, and Bishop Sprat.

The character of Ford, Lord Grey, is stained with licentiousness, cowardice, falsehood, and ingratitude. The seduction of his wife's sister, of which an account may be seen in the State Trials, was aggravated by duplicity to her parents, and barbarity to her. After the accession of James, he excited Monmouth to make an invasion, and afterwards ruined his cause by his notorious cowardice. When in prison, he offered to become a witness against his former associate Mr. Hampden; and, in order to secure his own life, he wrote, by the command of James, what Mr. Hume is pleased to call "the most full and authentic account" of the RyeHouse plot. The story is long, and well told, and probably has a great mixture of truth; but as it is impossible to separate the true from the false, it is better to neglect it altogether.

Bishop Sprat wrote, at the desire of Charles and James, a history of the Rye-House plot: but, after the Revolution, he published two exculpatory letters to the Earl of Dorset, in which he says that James, after his accession, called for his papers, and having read them, and altered divers passages, caused them to be published, by his own authority. Sprat also retracts all that he had insinuated against Lord Russell's

veracity: his authority must, of course, be equally disregarded with that of Lord Grey.

It remains to be considered, how far Lord Russell was justified in consulting and debating on the practicability of raising an insurrection.

I apprehend few men will now deny that resistance to a government may sometimes be an act, not only justifiable as an enterprise, but imperative as a duty. At the same time, I am far from agreeing to the doctrine attributed to Lord Chatham, that "it were better for the people to perish in a glorious contention for their rights, than to purchase a slavish tranquillity, at the expense of a single iota of the constitution." It should, indeed, be the endeavour of men who have inherited liberty from their ancestors, to transmit the possession unimpaired to their descendants; but the loss of a single franchise may be compensated, and abuses of power, though frequent, may be resisted, without recourse to arms, so long as there are channels through which the injured may obtain redress. Should these be choaked up, and in danger of being totally closed, it is then the unquestionable right of all men who value their privileges, to prepare other means for their de fence.

* Anecdotes of Lord Chatham. Speech, January, 9, 1770.

If we consider the state of the government at the period when Lord Russell was executed, we shall see that it had totally changed its nature. The very means by which the Crown may be lawfully resisted, had been either taken away, or converted into instruments for raising a new edifice of arbitrary power. These means are, the parliament, the courts of justice, and the press. The parliament had been dissolved two years before, with an apparent determination never to call another; and, should their assistance be ever wanted, the surrender of the charters gave so commanding an influence to the Crown, that their remonstrances would be no longer formidable. Accordingly, King James found, in the parliament which he assembled upon his coming to the throne, a willing and humble tool.

The courts of justice, where judges were appointed and displaced at the King's pleasure, and juries were returned, without regard either to law or decency, had become more subservient to the Court than those of France, a country in which despotism was openly established. In London, where justice had long been neglected, in the struggle of the rival parties, the Tories were now completely triumphant, and there was no doubt that the promoters of the Exclusion Bill would not receive free and impartial justice.

The press also, the last refuge of the worshippers of freedom, had become a fortress of her enemies. The writings of the Whigs were suppressed, and calumnies against them published, in violation and in contempt of the laws. That such was the system of government, has been fully made out by the facts before detailed; and, to crown all, in order to afford time for the new system to acquire stability, a pension was received from a foreign power, which defrayed the most urgent expenses of the Court.

So many measures, all tending to the same end, constituted no less change in the English constitution than was effected by the Republicans when they beheaded Charles the First, and proclaimed the Commonwealth and had

Charles the Second lived, or had James not ob. stinately persevered in his attachment to Popery, there can be little doubt that 1681 would now be looked upon as the era of a revolution which established in England the unlimited monarchy of the Stuarts.

These considerations are sufficient it appears to me, to justify the alarm which Lord Russell felt for his country, and his wish to form a party against the dangerous pretensions of the royal brothers. But, in all cases of resistance, not only must the justice of the cause be considered, but also the probability of success.