ill he impute it to us as a sin that, when a
prince, whom, in spite of extreme provocations, we have never ceased
to honour and obey, has departed we know not whither, leaving no
vicegerent, we take the only course which can prevent the entire
dissolution of society. Had our Sovereign remained among us, we were
ready, little as he deserved our love, to die at his feet. Had he, when
he quitted us, appointed a regency to govern us with vicarious authority
during his absence, to that regency alone should we have looked for
direction. But he has disappeared, having made no provision for the
preservation of order or the administration of justice. With him,
and with his Great Seal, has vanished the whole machinery by which
a murderer can be punished, by which the right to an estate can be
decided, by which the effects of a bankrupt can be distributed. His
last act has been to free thousands of armed men from the restraints
of military discipline, and to place them in such a situation that they
must plunder or starve. Yet a few hours, and every man's hand will be
against his neighbour. Life, property, female honour, will be at the
mercy of every lawless spirit. We are at this moment actually in that
state of nature about which theorists have written so much; and in
that state we have been placed, not by our fault, but by the voluntary
defection of him who ought to have been our protector. His defection may
be justly called voluntary: for neither his life nor his liberty was
in danger. His enemies had just consented to treat with him on a basis
proposed by himself, and had offered immediately to suspend all hostile
operations, on conditions which he could not deny to be liberal. In such
circumstances it is that he has abandoned his trust. We retract nothing.
We are in nothing inconsistent. We still assert our old doctrines
without qualification. We still hold that it is in all cases sinful to
resist the magistrate: but we say that there is no longer any magistrate
to resist. He who was the magistrate, after long abusing his powers, has
at last abdicated them. The abuse did not give us a right to depose him:
but the abdication gives us a right to consider how we may best supply
his place.

It was on these grounds that the Prince's party was now swollen by many
adherents who had previously stood aloof from it. Never, within the
memory of man, had there been so near an approach to entire concord
among all intelligent Englishmen as