should be made to them on the part of the crown, the king deemed it a favorable opportunity, ill as he then was, and incapable as the generality of persons in his situation would have been to turn their thoughts to public affairs, to send, February 28, 1702, the following message, on a subject ever near to his heart, to both houses of parliament, being the last they ever received from him:

WILLIAM R.

His majesty being at present hindered by an unhappy accident from coming in person to his par liament, is pleased to signify to the house of peers (commons) by message, what he designed to have spoken to both houses from the throne. His majesty in the first year of his reign did acquaint the parliament that commissioners were authorized in Scotland to treat with such commissioners as should be appointed in England, of proper terms for uniting the two kingdoms, and at the same time expressed his great desire of such an union. His majesty is fully satisfied that nothing can more contribute to the present and future security and happiness of England and Scotland, than a firm and entire union between them; and he cannot but hope that, upon a due consideration of our present circumstances, there will be found a general disposition to this union. His majesty would esteem it a peculiar felicity if, during his reign, some happy expedient for making both kingdoms one might take place, and is therefore extremely desirous that a treaty for that purpose might be set on foot, and does in the most earnest manner recommend this affair to the consideration of the house.

On the 17th March the king gave the royal assent by commission, using a stamp for the purpose of signature, to the famous abjuration bill. So that the three last public acts of his life were very memorable. His last speech, his last message, and his last exercise of legislative authority, testifying, as it were, to his latest moments, and with his departing breath, his ardent wishes for the advancement of the general happiness, and his detestation of tyranny in every form, political, civil, and religious. He died March 8, 1702, in the height of his reputation, and in the meridian of his life-a life distinguished beyond all others by a series of great and keroic actions, the invariable object of which was, not like that of other heroes, the ruin or destruction, but the real, essential, and permanent welfare, of mankind,

ON THE STATE OF PARTIES.

A. D. 1703.

QUEEN ANNE, a woman of an excellent heart, but of a very narrow understanding, had imbibed from early education a strong predilection for high-church and tory principles. These principles had necessarily undergone some modification from the great and recent event of the Revolution, in which the tories cordially concurred, in spite of former animosities, with their political adversaries the whigs. The antient dogmas of passive obedience and non-resistance could not therefore, in present circumstances, be maintained in their full extent, and the doctrine of religious toleration, established by an act which was regarded as forming part of the basis of the new settlement, was no longer called in question. But the spirit and temper of the two state factions, when the danger which united them was dissipated, remained as inimical and irreconcileable as ever. The systems of government which they respectively adopted were indeed wholly opposite in their nature and tendency. The principles of the whigs, with which their practices were by no means always in unison, were directed to the advancement and security of liberty civil and religious. The prerogatives of the crown, whenever carried beyond the just limits of political utility, appeared to them as encroachments and usurpations upon the rights of the people, and they regarded, or professed to regard, with a jealous eye, every extension of the monarchical

authority. Their maxims of government were mild and conciliatory; measures of coercion and violence being resorted to by them with reluctance, and from a clear conviction only of their necessity.'

The spirit of the tory system seemed on the contrary calculated for the advantage of the governors rather than of the governed. Though the adherents of this system could not now deny the lawfulness of resistance in extreme cases, they deprecated the discussion of so dangerous a truth, and made in effect all political virtues and duties to centre in submission to the supreme power of the state. Conceiving that the slightest tendency to disobedience could not be too severely repressed, they were most pleased and gratified when the sovereign authority was exercised with harshness and haughtiness, on the avowed principle that mankind were to be ruled chiefly by fear, and persuaded that those lawless passions which led to sedition and rebellion were to be re strained only by a high and imperious domination, ultimately tending, as they conceived, to the general security and happiness. From this delineation of the opposite parties, it is evident that the principles of the whigs were very liable to be abused by the factious, and perverted to the purposes of anarchy and licentiousness. But as all governments and all individuals possessed of power are naturally prone to exceed the limits of moderation in the exercise of it, the far greater danger lay on the other side; namely, that the principles of toryism would habitually predominate, and that the spirit of domination would terminate in the spirit of oppression.

In the important sense now stated and explained, the two parties of whigs and tories will ever subsist under

every form, and more especially under every free form, of government, and there is no reason for discarding fastidiously the use of the terms. In both parties indi viduals may doubtless be found of the highest respecta bility; and amongst the most enlightened of those who are chiefly solicitous on the one hand to maintain the just and constitutional prerogatives of the crown, and on the other to preserve entire the rights and liberties of the subject, very faint shades of difference would probably be discovered on a dispassionate examination and comparison of sentiments.

On the 27th February, 1703, terminated the first session of the first parliament elected in the present reign, in the course of which manifest proofs appeared of the decided ascendancy of the tories; although much of the rage of party was restrained and moderated by the political sagacity of the great leaders, Godolphin and Marlborough, men who possessed an intimate knowledge of human nature, and indubitable talents for government. The speech of the queen to the two bouses, previous to the prorogation, contained the following re‐ markable and characteristic paragraph:

MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN,

I DESIRE and expect from you that you make it your business in your several counties to continue and preserve the quiet and satisfaction of my subjects. I hope such of them as have the misfortune to dissent from the church of England will rest secure and satisfied in the act of toleration, which I am resolved to maintain; and that all those who have the happiness and advantage to be of the church of England, will consider