successor to a crown were upon
the same foot with the property of a subject, still It may at any time
be transferred by the legislative power, as other properties frequently
are. The supreme power in a state can do no wrong, because whatever that
doth, is the action of all; and when the lawyers apply this maxim to the
king, they must understand it only in that sense as he is administrator
of the supreme power, otherwise it is not universally true, but may be
controlled in several instances easy to produce.

And these are the topics we must proceed upon to justify our exclusion
of the young Pretender in France; that of his suspected birth being
merely popular, and therefore not made use of as I remember, since the
Revolution in any speech, vote, or proclamation where there was occasion
to mention him.

As to the abdication of King James, which the advocates on that side
look upon to have been forcible and unjust, and consequently void in
itself, I think a man may observe every article of the English Church,
without being in much pain about it. 'Tis not unlikely that all doors
were laid open for his departure, and perhaps not without the privity of
the Prince of Orange, as reasonably concluding that the kingdom might be
settled in his absence: But to affirm he had any cause to apprehend the
same treatment with his father, is an improbable scandal flung upon the
nation by a few bigotted French scribblers, or the invidious assertion
of a ruined party at home, in the bitterness of their souls: Not one
material circumstance agreeing with those in 1648; and the greatest part
of the nation having preserved the utmost horror for that ignominious
murder: But whether his removal were caused by his own fears or other
men's artifices, 'tis manifest to me, that supposing the throne to be
vacant, which was the foot they went upon, the body of the people were
thereupon left at liberty, to choose what form of government they
pleased, by themselves or their representatives.

The only difficulty of any weight against the proceedings at the
Revolution, is an obvious objection, to which the writers upon that
subject have not yet given a direct or sufficient answer, as if they
were in pain at some consequences which they apprehend those of the
contrary opinion might draw from it, I will repeat this objection as it
was offered me some time ago, with all its advantages, by a very pious,
learned, and worthy gentleman[11] of the nonjuring part