s (by becoming such) virtually engaged to submit.
Whereas, in the great and independent society, which every nation
composes, there is no superior to resort to but the law of nature; no
method to redress the infringements of that law, but the actual
exertion of private force. As therefore between two nations,
complaining of mutual injuries, the quarrel can only be decided by the
law of arms; so in one and the same nation, when the fundamental
principles of their common union are supposed to be invaded, and more
especially when the appointment of their chief magistrate is alleged
to be unduly made, the only tribunal to which the complainants can
appeal is that of the God of battels, the only process by which the
appeal can be carried on is that of a civil and intestine war. An
hereditary succession to the crown is therefore now established, in
this and most other countries, in order to prevent that periodical
bloodshed and misery, which the history of antient imperial Rome, and
the more modern experience of Poland and Germany, may shew us are the
consequences of elective kingdoms.

2. BUT, secondly, as to the particular mode of inheritance, it in
general corresponds with the feodal path of descents, chalked out by
the common law in the succession to landed estates; yet with one or
two material exceptions. Like them, the crown will descend lineally
to the issue of the reigning monarch; as it did from king John to
Richard II, through a regular pedigree of six lineal descents. As in
them, the preference of males to females, and the right of
primogeniture among the males, are strictly adhered to. Thus Edward V
succeeded to the crown, in preference to Richard his younger brother
and Elizabeth his elder sister. Like them, on failure of the male
line, it descends to the issue female; according to the antient
British custom remarked by Tacitus[a], "_solent foeminarum ductu
bellare, et sexum in imperiis non discernere_." Thus Mary I succeeded
to Edward VI; and the line of Margaret queen of Scots, the daughter of
Henry VII, succeeded on failure of the line of Henry VIII, his son.
But, among the females, the crown descends by right of primogeniture
to the eldest daughter only and her issue; and not, as in common
inheritances, to all the daughters at once; the evident necessity of a
sole succession to the throne having occasioned the royal law of
descents to depart from the common law in this respect: and therefore
queen Mary on th