But while the English were discarding the old principle they set up a new one; which indeed is not so pernicious because it cannot become so extensive, but which is scarcely more reasonable: it is the right of kings by _compact;_ that is, a compact, whether written or understood, by which the representatives of a nation are supposed to bind their constituents and their descendants to be the subjects of a certain prince and of his descendants to perpetuity. This singular doctrine is developed with perspicuity, but ill supported by argument, in Burke's _Reflections on the French Revolution._
The principle of the American government denies the right of any representatives to make such a compact, and the right of any prince to carry it into execution if it were made. Whatever varieties or mixtures there may be in the _forms_ of government, there are but two distinct principles on which government is founded. One supposes the source of power to be _out_ of the people, and that the governor is not accountable to them for the manner of using it; the other supposes the source of power to be _in_ the people, and that the governor is accountable to them for the manner of using it. The latter is our principle. In this sense no _right divine_ nor _compact_ can form a king; that is, a person, exercising underived and unreverting power.
_But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave, They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave._
The English general Elliott commanded the post of Gibraltar, against which the combined forces of France and Spain made a vigorous but fruitless attack in the year 1781. This attack furnished the subjects for two celebrated pictures alluded to in the eighth book: _The burning of the Floating Batteries_ painted by Copley; and _The Sortie_, painted by Trumbull.
_To guide the sailor in his wandering way, See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day._
It is less from national vanity than from a regard to truth and a desire of rendering personal justice, that the author wishes to rectify the history of science in the circumstance here alluded to. The instrument known by the name of Hartley's Quadrant, now universally in use and generally attributed to Dr. Hartley, was invented by Thomas Godfrey of Philadelphia. See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia; likewise Miller's Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, in which the original documents relative to Godfrey's invention are fully detailed.