These are the plain truths, which I have here delivered to you, and on which I could be content to rest this great cause; I mean, if it had not already received its formal, and, I would hope, final determination, in another way. For no pretences will surely prevail hereafter with a happy people to renounce that liberty, which so rightfully belonged to them at all times, and hath now so solemnly been confirmed to them by the great transactions of these days. I willingly omit therefore, as superfluous, what in a worse cause might have been thought of no small weight, the express testimony of our ablest lawyers to the freedom of our constitution. I do not mean only the COKES and SELDENS of our time (though in point of authority what names can be greater than theirs?); but those of older and therefore more reverend estimation, such as GLANVIL, BRACTON, the author of FLETA, THORNTON, and FORTESCUE[155]: men the most esteemed and learned in their several ages; who constantly and uniformly speak of the _English_, as a mixed and limited form of government, and even go so far as to seek its origin, where indeed the origin of all governments must be sought, in the free will and consent of the people.
All this I might have displayed at large; and to others perhaps, especially if the cause had required such management, all this I should have displayed. But, independently of the judgments of particular men, which prejudice might take occasion to object to, I hold it sufficient to have proved from surer grounds, from the very form and make of our political fabric, and the most unquestioned, because the most public, monuments of former times, “THAT THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION IS ASSUREDLY AND INDISPUTABLY FREE[156].”
You will read, Sir JOHN, in our attention to this discourse, the effect it has had upon us. The zeal, with which you have pleaded the cause of liberty, makes me almost imagine I see you again in the warmth and spirit of your younger years, when you first made head against the encroachments of civil tyranny. The same cause has not only recalled to your memory the old topics of defence, but restores your former vigour in the management of them. So that, for myself, I must freely own, your vindication of our common liberties is, at least, the most plausible and consistent that I have ever met with.
