第20章 Letter VI(3)

As this event disarmed,dispirited and broke one party,so it strengthened,animated and united the other.The Tories,who looked on the dangers they apprehended from the Whigs to be greater and nearer than those which they had apprehended,as well as the Whigs,before this new division of parties,from a popish succession,were now confirmed in their prejudices.Under this persuasion,they run headlong into all the measures which were taken for enlarging the King's authority,and securing the crown to the Duke of York.

The principles of divine hereditary right,of passive obedience,and nonresistance,were revived and propagated with greater zeal than ever.Not only the wild whimsies of enthusiasm,of schoolmen and philosophers,but the plainest dictates of reason were solemnly condemned in favour of them,by learned and reverend bodies of men;who little thought that in five years'time,that is in 1688,they should act conformably to some of the very propositions,which at this time they declared false,seditious and impious.

In short,the Guelphs and Ghibellines were not more animated against each other at any time,than the Tories and Whigs at this;and in such a national temper,considerable steps were made,as they well might be,towards the destruction of our constitution.One of those which Rapin enumerates,and insists upon very gravely,can scarce be mentioned without smiling.'The King',says he,'in order to make his people feel the slavery he had newly imposed on them,affected to review his troops;and these troops amounted,by the return of the garrison of Tangier,to four thousand men,effective,and well-armed.'The Whigs,indeed,in those days,were so averse to standing armies,that they thought even those troops,commonly called guards,unlawful;and bishop Burnet argues,in his reflections on my lord Russell's trial,that a design to seize on them amounted to no more than a design to seize on a part of the King's army.But it is possible that the Tories,who had showed their dislike of standing armies sufficiently in the long Parliament,might think it however no unreasonable thing,when designs of insurrections,and even of assassinations had come so lately to light,that a number of regular troops,sufficient to defend the person of the King,but not sufficient to oppress the liberties of the people,and five times less than we have since seen kept up in the midst of the most secure tranquillity,should be winked at,till these distempers were entirely over.