a parliament resting
on universal suffrage, or establishing a revolutionary tribunal, the
jurors of which were nominated by that democratic assembly. So as the
victorious party were allowed to chant hymns as they pleased, and hear
long sermons replete with any absurdity, and indulge in the freedom of the
pulpit, they cared nothing for that of the press, or altering the
structure of government. When Charles II. was recalled by Monk, he had
only to issue writs to the counties and boroughs which had returned the
Long Parliament, to obtain the most thoroughly loyal commons which ever
sat in England.

Although the change of government in 1688 is usually called "the
Revolution," and although it certainly was a most decisive overthrow so
far as the reigning family was concerned, yet it was by no means a
revolution in the sense in which we now understand the word. It made no
change in the basis of power in the state, though it altered the dynasty
which sat on the throne, and for seventy years fixed the reign of power in
the hands of the Whig party, who had been most instrumental in placing
William and Mary on it. But the structure of Government remained
unchanged; or rather, it was changed only to be rendered more stable and
powerful. We owe to the Revolution many of our greatest blessings; but not
the least of these has been the removal of the causes of weakness which
had so often before, in English history, proved fatal to the throne. It
gave us a national debt, a standing army, and a stable foreign policy. The
sum annually raised by William in taxes, within five years after he
obtained the throne, was triple what had been so much the subject of
complaint in the time of Charles I.; but the effect of this was to give us
a firm government and steady policy. De Witt had said, in the disgraceful
days of the alliance of Charles II. with France, that the changes of
English policy had now become so frequent, that no man could rely on any
system being continued steadily for two years together. The continental
interests and connexions of William, and subsequently of the Hanover
family, gave us a durable system of foreign policy, and imprinted, for an
hundred and forty years, that steadiness in our councils, without which
neither individuals nor nations ever attained either lasting fame or
greatness. Nor was it the least blessing consequent upon such a change of
external policy, and of the wars which it necessarily induced, that it
gav