He felt some concern that this strange thing, called a Revolution in
France, should be compared with the glorious event commonly called
the Revolution in England; and the conduct of the soldiery, on that
occasion, compared with the behaviour of some of the troops of France in
the present instance. At that period the prince of Orange, a prince of
the blood-royal in England, was called in by the flower of the English
aristocracy to defend its ancient constitution, and not to level all
distinctions. To this prince, so invited, the aristocratic leaders who
commanded the troops went over with their several corps, in bodies,
to the deliverer of their country. Aristocratic leaders brought up the
corps of citizens who newly enlisted in this cause. Military obedience
changed its object; but military discipline was not for a moment
interrupted in its principle. The troops were ready for war, but
indisposed to mutiny. But as the conduct of the English armies was
different, so was that of the whole English nation at that time. In
truth, the circumstances of our revolution (as it is called) and that of
France, are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular,
and in the whole spirit of the transaction. With us it was the case of a
legal monarch attempting arbitrary power--in France it is the case of
an arbitrary monarch, beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his
authority. The one was to be resisted, the other was to be managed and
directed; but in neither case was the order of the state to be changed,
lest government might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected and
legalized. With us we got rid of the man, and preserved the constituent
parts of the state. There they get rid of the constituent parts of the
state, and keep the man. What we did was in truth and substance, and in
a constitutional light, a revolution, not made, but prevented. We took
solid securities; we settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies
in our law. In the stable, fundamental parts of our constitution we
made no revolution; no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair
the monarchy. Perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it very
considerably. The nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the same
privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same
subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the
magistracy; the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations, the
same electors.
The church was not impaired. Her estates, her majesty, her splendour,
her orders and gradations, continued the same. She was preserved in her
full efficiency, and cleared only of a certain intolerance, which was
her weakness and disgrace. The church and the state were the same after
the revolution that they were before, but better secured in every part.
Was little done because a revolution was not made in the constitution?
No! Everything was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with
ruin. Accordingly the state flourished. Instead of laying as dead, in a
sort of trance, or exposed, as some others, in an epileptic fit, to
the pity or derision of the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive
movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out her brains
against the pavement, Great Britain rose above the standard even of
her former self. An era of a more improved domestic prosperity then
commenced, and still continues not only unimpaired, but growing, under
the wasting hand of time. All the energies of the country were awakened.
England never preserved a firmer countenance, nor a more vigorous arm,
to all her enemies, and to all her rivals. Europe under her respired and
revived. Everywhere she appeared as the protector, assertor, or avenger,
of liberty. A war was made and supported against fortune itself. The
treaty of Ryswick, which first limited the power of France, was soon
after made; the grand alliance very shortly followed, which shook to
the foundations the dreadful power which menaced the independence of
mankind. The states of Europe lay happy under the shade of a great and
free monarchy, which knew how to be great without endangering its
own peace at home, or the internal or external peace of any of its
neighbours.