was, if it had any fault, rather too guarded, and too circumstantial * 1.1. But all this guard, and all this accumulation of circumstances, serves to shew the spirit of caution which pre|dominated in the national councils, in a situa|tion in which men irritated by oppression, and elevated by a triumph over it, are apt to aban|don themselves to violent and extreme courses: it shews the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution a parent of set|tlement, and not a nursery of future revolu|tions.
No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down with any thing so loose and indefinite as an opinion of "misconduct." They who led at the Revolution, grounded the virtual abdication of King James upon no such light and uncertain a principle. They charged him with nothing less than a design, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt acts, to subvert the Protestant church and state, and their funda|mental, unquestionable laws and liberties: they charged him with having broken the original contract between king and people. This was
