essed, viz., that I did not see it possible the Jacobites
could ever set up their idol here, and I think my opinion abundantly
justified in the consequences; of which by and by.

This digression, as a debt to the glorious memory of king William, I
could not in justice omit; and as the reign of his present majesty is
esteemed happy, and looked upon as a blessing from heaven by us, it will
most necessarily lead us to bless the memory of king William, to whom we
owe so much of it. How easily could his majesty have led us to other
branches, whose relation to the crown might have had large pretences!
What prince but would have submitted to have educated a successor of his
race in the protestant religion for the sake of such a crown? But the
king, who had our happiness in view, and saw as far into it as any human
sight could penetrate; who knew we were not to be governed by
inexperienced youths; that the protestant religion was not to be
established by political converts; and that princes, under French
influence, or instructed in French politics, were not proper instruments
to preserve the liberties of Britain, fixed his eyes upon the family
which now possesses the crown, as not only having an undoubted relation
to it by blood, but as being first and principally zealous and powerful
asserters of the protestant religion and interest against popery; and,
secondly, stored with a visible succession of worthy and promising
branches, who appeared equal to the weight of government, qualified to
fill a throne and guide a nation, which, without reflection, are not
famed to be the most easy to rule in the world.

Whether the consequence has been a credit to king William's judgment I
need not say. I am not writing panegyrics here, but doing justice to
the memory of the king my master, whom I have had the honour very often
to hear express himself with great satisfaction in having brought the
settlement of the succession to so good an issue; and, to repeat his
majesty's own words, that he knew no prince in Europe so fit to be king
of England as the elector of Hanover. I am persuaded, without any
flattery, that if it should not every way answer the expectations his
majesty had of it, the fault will be our own. God grant the king may
have more comfort of his crown than we suffered king William to have!

The king being dead, and the queen proclaimed, the hot men of that side,
as the hot men of all sides do, thinking the game in their own ha