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1. “One who is our father not our over-lord . . . Let us then appreciate our good fortune and prove our worth by our use of it, and at the same time remember that there can be no merit if greater deference is paid to rulers who delight in the servitude of their subjects than to those who value liberty.” Pliny Panegyric 2.3–5. 2. James II suspended the Test Acts, which prevented Catholics from holding public office. This was one of the actions leading to the Glorious Revolution in 1688. 3. Queen Anne (1665–1714), last of the Stuart monarchs, reigned from 1702 until 1714. 4. George I (1660 –1727), first of the Hanoverian kings, reigned from 1714 until 1727. Freeholder, No. 2 Monday, December 26, 1715 Non de domino, sed de parente loquimur. Intelligamus ergo bona nostra, dignosque nos illius usu probemus; atque identidem cogitemus, si majus principibus praestemus obsequium, qui servitute civium, quam qui libertate laetantur. Plin.1 Having in my first paper set forth the happiness of my station as a Free-holder of Great Britain, and the nature of that property which is secured to me by the laws of my country; I cannot forbear considering , in the next place, that person who is entrusted with the guardianship and execution of those laws. I have lived in one reign, when the Prince, instead of invigorating the laws of our country, or giving them their proper course, assumed a power of dispensing with them:2 and in another, when the Sovereign3 was flattered by a set of men into a persuasion, that the regal Authority was unlimited and uncircumscribed. In either of these cases, good laws are at best but a dead letter; and by shewing the people how happy they ought to be, only serve to aggravate the sense of their oppressions. We have the pleasure at this time to see a King upon the throne,4 freeholder 2 203 who hath too much goodness to wish for any power, that does not enable him to promote the welfare of his subjects; and too much wisdom to look upon those as his friends, who would make their court to him by the profession of an obedience, which they never practised, and which has always proved fatal to those Princes, who have put it to the tryal. His Majesty gave a proof of his sovereign virtues, before he came to the exercise of them in this kingdom. His inclination to justice led him to rule his German subjects in the same manner, that our constitution directs him to govern the English. He regarded those which are our civil liberties, as the natural rights of mankind; and therefore indulged them to a people, who pleaded no other claim to them than from his known goodness and humanity. This experience of a good Prince, before we had the happiness to enjoy him, must give great satisfaction to every thinking man, who considers how apt Sovereignty is to deprave human nature; and how many of our own Princes made very ill figures upon the Throne, who, before they ascended it, were the favourites of the people. What gives us the greatest security in the conduct of so excellent a Prince is That consistency of behaviour, whereby he inflexibly pursues those measures which appear the most just and equitable. As he hath the character of being the most prudent in laying proper schemes; he is no less remarkable for being steady in accomplishing what he has once concerted. Indeed, if we look into the history of his present Majesty, and reflect upon that wonderful series of successes which have attended him, I think they cannot be ascribed to any thing so much as to his uniformity and firmness of mind, which has always discovered it self in his proceedings. It was by this that he surmounted those many difficulties which lay in the way to his succession ; and by which, we have reason to hope, he will daily make all opposition fall before him. The fickle and unsteady politicks of our late British Monarchs, have been the perpetual source of those dissensions and animosities which have made the nation unhappy: Whereas the constant and unshaken temper of his present Majesty, must have a natural tendency to the peace of his government, and the unanimity of his people. Whilst I am enumerating the publick virtues of our Sovereign, which are so conducive to the advantage of those...

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