VI. No one will pretend that such an occasion was within the reach of human foresight; of course the only remedy then atta inable was applied· to the disorder of the state. Upon a fair review of the contest it will be seen that what the Tory and the Courtier of the present day, the fri end or even the flatterer of kingly power, admits as axioms, were the grand desiderata of the "Whig and the Patriot of those times, and that what were then cried out upon as da ring encroachments now pass as the most moderate and unquestioned claims. Not to deceive ourselves then with words, nor at tach our minds to names instead of things, although the government under which we prosper be termed Imperial; yet the greater part of the legislative power resting with the people, and the executive being vested in a chief magistrate, who is under so many limitations that he seems placed in that situation very much more for the common weal, the public benefi t, than his own ease or advantage, it must be allowed to come up to Col. Hutchinson's favourite idea of a republic for all beneficial purposes, and would assuredly be not less acceptable to him, for that the hereditary succession would be found to repress that effervescence of individual ambition which it was the study and the labour of his life to keep down. Possessing himself, but ·finding not in others, the virtue worthy of and essential to a republic, he would gladly have taken shel ter under a well-limited monarchy, and of such a one he would unquestionably have been a loyal subject, a vigorous assertor. The Puritani sm which appears in the story, and actuated the conduct of Col. 1-Iutchinson all through life, may be accounted for on almost a similar ground with his predilection for a republic. The puritanic turn of thought and stile of expression had been adopted by the vindicators of religious freedom and right of enquiry, with whom the champions of civil liberty natui·ally made common cause. Divinity as a science was a study then in vogne, and seems to have tinctured the conversation and writings of the greater part
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