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Show 434 PLANOF RECONCILIATION. 485 in the very fame unfettled {late in which it found them, rather than for having. done what is icai‘ce pollibl'e, put them in- weakening the fundamentals, if they en- deavoured to ezmlain them. It appeared by all the proceedings of to a worfe. A propolition once avowed by a quondam houfe of commons is, " that it is a the Americans, by the votes of their af- femblics, by the books in greatelt repute " very unfafe thing, in any fettled govern- among them, that the Americans had no " ment, to argue the realons of the funda" mental conflitutions, for that can tend precife ideas offthe relation in which they Hand to the mother country. Thefe ac- " to nothing that is profitable to the counts were confirmed by repeated advices " whole "*1" from the fervants of the crown ; yet till A maxim of the very {lamp of thofe, behind which all bigots either in religion- that relation was fixed, nothing permanent or politics intrench themfelves ;- as if a this bulinefs, what was the parliament government could be {aid to be fet:lcd, or '>loyed about for fix long years 9 They were at the pains of giving their fanfiion at leafl well licttled, that could not bear to have the resist s of its ef‘tabliihments enn quired into. could be done. Infiead of fetting about to a power, which by their own fliewing One cannot but be furry at needed no fucl'i thing, and which after it obferving a parliament in this more en- had that fanfiion, it was thought, and lightened awe actuated b o b that without any change of circumllances, the it me fear of not fate, or not prudent to exert. See Com. journ. vol. ix. p. 2.3.3. To thr aten a punilhment, and that of the firlt magnitude, which you dare not in- gweaken- flict, is wanting only to grai'p all the Ii 3 odium |