333 be false, and truth retorted all upon themselves that they had iniuriously cast at the others.h At that time that the parliament was broken up Coli. Hutchinson \vas in the country, where, since his going in his course out of the council of state, he had for about a yeare's time applied himselfe, when the p arliament could dispense with his absence, to the administration of iustice in the country, and to the putting in execution of those wholsome laws and statutes of the land provided for the orderly regulation of the people. And it was wonderful how, in a short space, he reform' cl severall abuses and customary neglec ts in that part of the country where he liv'd, ~vh i ch being a rich fruiteh Almost all the historical writers who have treated of these times concur in depreciati ng this parli ament, and represent them as a small number or junto whose principal view was to perpetuate themselves in the enjoyment of powet.:, and honours. Those readers who desire to form a true judgment of this matter will be materially assisted by comparing the passages here before them with Whitelock, and more particularly with the first twenty pages of the second volume of .Ludlow; they will find that sort of consonance which is the best mark of truth, viz . the recital of different circumlitances tending to establish one and the same principal fact. They will then by convinced that the great men who were in that time at the head of affairs had conducted them in a manner worthy of themselves, and had brought the nation to .a state of prosperity which nothing less than a miracle can ever again bring it to, and which :Mrs. Hutchinson describes in few arrcl simple, but impressive words; the p eople 'r-ich, the revenue great, debts paid, money in their purus, frte j1·om enemies within and without . They had concluded with reforming the abuses of the law, and providing for their being succeeded by a fair and equal representation of the people, which all confess still to be the grand desideratum of our constitution. And it was the very circumstance of the act being on the anvi l, ready to receive the finishing stroke, that obliged Cromwell to act with such precipitation as staggered hi s confederates. From all which wi ll arise these coro1laries or deductions; that a state, however g reat, may be governed in a republ ican .form, and every departrnent properly fill ed and adm inistered . Bu t that no sufficient barrier has yet been found against a military chief, who has popular ity, address, and ambition, to become the tyrant of it. And in the end recourse must be had to her~ditary succession, from whence they at first departed.
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