Dec.

The opposition party had got wind of the King's intention of proroguing Parliament, and actively employed themselves in procuring petitions, that it might meet and do business on the 26th January, the day formerly appointed. Seventeen peers pre1679. sented a petition for this purpose. These were the Earls of Kent, Huntingdon, Bedford, Clare, Stamford, and Shaftesbury, and the Lords Say and Sele, Eure, North, and Grey, Chandos, Grey, Howard, Herbert, Rockingham, Townsend, Hollis, and Delamere. The King was greatly alarmed at this proceeding, and resolved to discourage the petitions at the outset. He sent for the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, when the Chancellor, by his command, told them, that letters tending to sedition and rebellion had been intercepted, desiring those to whom they were addressed to get as many signatures as possible to the petitions, no matter whether of freeholders or not. His Majesty, said the Chancellor, expected that they would not suffer such persons as should sign such petitions, or procure signatures to them, to go unpunished. He ended by quoting an obscure opinion of the judges, given in the second year of James the First, when a question being put to them, whether it was a punishable offence to procure petitions, menacing the King with the discontent of many thousands of his subjects, if he refused their requests, the judges answered, that it was an offence near to treason and felony. Such an opinion, it is evident, even if it had been much more distinct, could have no bearing upon petitions simply desiring the King to meet his Parliament. This distinction was so obvious, that when the crown lawyers came to draw up a proclamation against the petitions, they had great difficulty in framing it, so as to strike the offenders, and disguise the real offence. Jeffries wished to prohibit the framing and present

So have I seen a king in chess,

(His rooks and knights withdrawn,
His queen and bishops in distress,)
Shifting about grow less and less,
With here and there a pawn.

ing any such petitions; and to command all the peace officers to punish every person acting to the contrary. But Lord Chief Justice North said, with jesuitical refinement," that the proclamation ought by no means to prohibit the petitioning His Majesty in any case, much less in the case of the parliament; but that it might take notice of certain ill people, who, under the specious pretence of petitioning, went about in a seditious and tumultuous manner, gathering hands to certain papers." And in this manner, in spite of some objections from the Attorney-General, the proclamation was drawn up.

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The first petition of the Commons was presented by Sir Gilbert Gerrard, in the name of thousands of His Majesty's subjects, in London, Westminster, and parts adjacent; it spoke of the plot, and requested the sitting of Parliament. The King told them, he looked upon himself as the head of the government, and the only judge of what was fit to be done in such cases. A few days afterwards, another petition to the like effect, from Wiltshire, was presented by Thomas Thynn, Esquire, Sir Walter St.John, and Sir Edward Hungerford. The King asked them, if they came from the grand jury, and upon their replying that they did not, he told them that they came from loose, disaffected people, and desired them not to meddle in his affairs. Petitions from Essex and Berkshire were also dismissed; the first in an insulting, and the second in a contemptuous manner. All these answers were ordered to be printed in the London Gazette, in order to intimidate the country gentlemen; a purpose which they seem to have completely answered; for few, if any more petitions were presented. In order still farther to produce an effect amongst the people, the court party represented the Duke of Monmouth, who had come over, and remained in England, against the King's positive order, as laying the foundation for an insurrection, and the petitions as the preparatory steps of that design. Upon which several addresses were sent up, declaring that the subscribers abhorred the action of promoting petitions. Hence the whole nation became divided into petitioners and abhorrers.

At this time, also, arose the distinction of Whigs and Tories. The origin of these names is well known: that of the parties took its rise from the new circumstances of the country. The Whigs formed a popular party far less enthusiastic in their religious tenets, and less divided in their political views, than that which opposed Charles the First. With the exception, perhaps, of Sydney, who was not in Parliament, none of them wished for any thing more than a regular execution of our ancient constitutional laws; government by Parliament, and trial by jury. The hereditary succession of the crown was in their eyes a rule for the benefit of the people, and not a dispensation of Providence for the advantage of a single family. If at any time, therefore, the observance of the rule became dangerous to the welfare of the community, the legislature was, in their opinion, competent to consider whether that danger was greater than the inconvenience of deviating from the established course.

In carrying on the ordinary government of the country, their chief aim and endeavour was to preserve unimpaired the rights and liberties of the people. If, to obtain these objects, they sometimes asked for the confirmation of privileges which were doubtful, and even the establishment of some that were new, these were only natural steps in the progress of civilisation. For the same rights which, fenced by uncertain boundaries, are, in barbarous times, the occasion of discord and civil war, become, when accurately defined, the safeguard of national tranquillity. A law to be really efficient, must not only be good in itself, but must be easy of execution, and unassailable on every side. A statute enacting the liberty of the press would be of no use, if the administration of justice were not pure; the responsibility of ministers would be a phantom, if the King could grant a pardon previous to impeachment. The Act of Magna Charta itself, as was stated at the end of the last chapter, was frequently violated, and became the cause of the most destructive wars. But its purpose having been completed by the Act of Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights, personal liberty and public tranquillity are undisturbed. To the necessity which exists of thus filling up the outline sketched by

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rude hands, we must attribute many of the pretensions which Mr. Hume has pointed out as innovations. The Whigs, it must be owned, had generally a leaning towards the dissenters. Nor did this arise only from the love of freedom remarkable in those sectaries. It was connected with a laudable desire for toleration to every sect but one, which was active in its endeavours to alter the government.

The Tories, on the other hand, were attached to the laws as well as the Whigs, but were for leaving entirely to the King, whether or not they should be executed. They considered the crown as a sacred and unalienable inheritance. They held that the rights of the successor to the throne were paramount and indefeasible. And as the Whigs wished to allow liberty as far as could be consistent with monarchy, the Tories desired to give to monarchy every thing that was compatible with safety. Their attachment to the established religion alone was stronger than to the established government. At the time of which we are treating, these two principles were perfectly consistent. Whilst the Tories professed that they never would abandon the Church, the Church declared that no circumstance whatever could alter their allegiance to the King.

It must not be supposed, however, that the Tories, though loud in their professions of unlimited submission, ever seriously meant that they would not resist in an extreme case. They sincerely venerated the laws, and dreaded the subversion of our ancient constitution. Thus, whilst they spoke with abhorrence of resistance to their sovereign, their conduct had a direct tendency to produce it. For their silent acquiescence in acts of petty tyranny encouraged the King to proceed to still greater outrages, till at last no remedy was to be found but in a revolution.

The Whigs, on the other hand, by their persevering opposition, acted in a manner to prevent the necessity of the resistance of which they spoke so much.

These parties, it must be owned, have their foundations deep in

the opinions of the country. As long as there is a body of men in this country attached to Church and King, more than to the constitution, the Tory party will subsist; and as long as there is a large portion of the people who consider monarchy only as the best protection for liberty, the Whig party will flourish.