Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Essays On Subjects Connected With History And Classical Learning.
provisions as may be necessary to retrench the luxuriance or prerogative and the influence of venality , vriii be found best calculated to promote the happiness and secure the liberties of England . We owe it to our forefathers , to preserve entire those rig hts which they purchased with their blood ; we owe it to posterity , not to suffer their inheritance to be wasted or destroyed : and may we never be insensible call this lorious desi pf
to these sacred duties ' . —Nor let us g gn our ancestors incomp lete in the execution . They' only feel the gratitude , and pay the homage due to the authors of the Revolution , who reflect not abstractedly on what they then did , but , considering times and circumstances , how little more they could have done with certainty and
safety . , „ ,. - But as we state the blessings attendant on the Revolution , as sources . of glory to its leading agent " , we must likewise allow , that the evils which resulted from it , will detract from the unbounded praises that would otherwise be due to his merits . Let us observe , however t . iat mankind cannot foresee all the consequences of their actions , and that ( from the very constitution ofthe human mind , whicheverviewsits own evil will oftcner arise than
desio-ns with a fond partiality ) unexpected unexpected good . Amongst the first of these evils is the . war with France the inevitable consequence of the Revolution , perhaps even the tacit condition upon which William ascended the throne ol Eng-¦ fmcl Yet supposing that war , in its effects , to have had an unfavourable influence on the general interests of mankind , ( or which , however , there is the greatest reason to doubt ) that which has proved -it-, most fatal consequence , the system of funding , can never be
admitted ' as a fair ground of crimination against its conductor , i he national debt , that growing burthen which . will one day crush a too patient people , has been increased to its now formidable magnitude by the perversion of a precedent , which was not in itself pernicious . If , indeed , the balance of power ( the preservation of which was the mofive and as we contend , at that time the justifiable motive of this exht to its natural levelrather by its
pensive war ) Were always broug , . _ own tendency to restore " itself , than by any efforts of a state not immediately connected with it ,, the war and its material consequences , mio-ht then perhaps be justly laid to the charge of Wnham . ^ nd as ¦ f vVs this war can be deemed to have been unnecessary , William stands convicted of adoptingwithout necessityand
thereforewith-, , , out justification , apian which hath since been perverted to the ruin of our finances , and the diminution of our national prosperity . But it ever there was reason to fear , that the equipoise would be destroyed , i > was ' -lu-elvin the career cfa monarch , whose power and whose address were exceeded only by the insatiable appetite of his ambition . If then revolution either for the support of religion
a were necessary or . th * ,-escue of freedom , tlie expences , with which it was attended , were amply compensated by the independence of England and ot E » rope ' But even conceding this point , ( which seems to us so completely defensible ) it was not by the intrig ues of William that this country was plunged into the contest . Our ancestors entered with
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Essays On Subjects Connected With History And Classical Learning.
provisions as may be necessary to retrench the luxuriance or prerogative and the influence of venality , vriii be found best calculated to promote the happiness and secure the liberties of England . We owe it to our forefathers , to preserve entire those rig hts which they purchased with their blood ; we owe it to posterity , not to suffer their inheritance to be wasted or destroyed : and may we never be insensible call this lorious desi pf
to these sacred duties ' . —Nor let us g gn our ancestors incomp lete in the execution . They' only feel the gratitude , and pay the homage due to the authors of the Revolution , who reflect not abstractedly on what they then did , but , considering times and circumstances , how little more they could have done with certainty and
safety . , „ ,. - But as we state the blessings attendant on the Revolution , as sources . of glory to its leading agent " , we must likewise allow , that the evils which resulted from it , will detract from the unbounded praises that would otherwise be due to his merits . Let us observe , however t . iat mankind cannot foresee all the consequences of their actions , and that ( from the very constitution ofthe human mind , whicheverviewsits own evil will oftcner arise than
desio-ns with a fond partiality ) unexpected unexpected good . Amongst the first of these evils is the . war with France the inevitable consequence of the Revolution , perhaps even the tacit condition upon which William ascended the throne ol Eng-¦ fmcl Yet supposing that war , in its effects , to have had an unfavourable influence on the general interests of mankind , ( or which , however , there is the greatest reason to doubt ) that which has proved -it-, most fatal consequence , the system of funding , can never be
admitted ' as a fair ground of crimination against its conductor , i he national debt , that growing burthen which . will one day crush a too patient people , has been increased to its now formidable magnitude by the perversion of a precedent , which was not in itself pernicious . If , indeed , the balance of power ( the preservation of which was the mofive and as we contend , at that time the justifiable motive of this exht to its natural levelrather by its
pensive war ) Were always broug , . _ own tendency to restore " itself , than by any efforts of a state not immediately connected with it ,, the war and its material consequences , mio-ht then perhaps be justly laid to the charge of Wnham . ^ nd as ¦ f vVs this war can be deemed to have been unnecessary , William stands convicted of adoptingwithout necessityand
thereforewith-, , , out justification , apian which hath since been perverted to the ruin of our finances , and the diminution of our national prosperity . But it ever there was reason to fear , that the equipoise would be destroyed , i > was ' -lu-elvin the career cfa monarch , whose power and whose address were exceeded only by the insatiable appetite of his ambition . If then revolution either for the support of religion
a were necessary or . th * ,-escue of freedom , tlie expences , with which it was attended , were amply compensated by the independence of England and ot E » rope ' But even conceding this point , ( which seems to us so completely defensible ) it was not by the intrig ues of William that this country was plunged into the contest . Our ancestors entered with