A general opening to the charge against Dr. Sacheverell was made by the attorney-general, Sir John Montague; but as there is nothing in that opening speech which tends very accurately to settle the principle upon which the Whigs proceeded in the prosecution, (the plan of the speech not requiring it,) I proceed to that of Mr. Lechmere, the manager, who spoke next after him.  The following are extracts, given, not in the exact order in which they stand in the printed trial, but in that which is thought most fit to bring the ideas of the Whig Commons distinctly under our view.

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Mr. Lechmere[14]

“It becomes an indispensable duty upon us, who appear in the name and on the behalf of all the commons of Great Britain, not only to demand your Lordships’ justice on such a criminal, [Dr. Sacheverell,] but clearly and openly to assert our foundations.”

[Sidenote:  That the terms of our Constitution imply and express an original contract.]

[Sidenote:  That the contract is mutual consent, and binding at all times upon the parties.]

[Sidenote:  The mixed Constitution uniformly preserved for many ages, and is a proof of the contract.]

“The nature of our Constitution is that of a limited monarchy, wherein the supreme power is communicated and divided between Queen, Lords, and Commons, though the executive power and administration be wholly in the crown.  The terms of such a Constitution do not only suppose, but express, an original contract between the crown and the people, by which that supreme power was (by mutual consent, and not by accident) limited and lodged in more hands than one.  And the uniform preservation of such a Constitution for so many ages, without any fundamental change, demonstrates to your Lordships the continuance of the same contract.

[Sidenote:  Laws the common measure to King and subject.]

[Sidenote:  Case of fundamental injury, and breach of original contract.]

“The consequences of such a frame of government are obvious:  That the laws are the rule to both, the common measure of the power of the crown and of the obedience of the subject; and if the executive part endeavors the subversion and total destruction of the government, the original contract is thereby broke, and the right of allegiance ceases that part of the government thus fundamentally injured hath a right to save or recover that Constitution in which it had an original interest.”

[Sidenote:  Words necessary means selected with caution.]

“The necessary means (which is the phrase used by the Commons in their first article) words made choice of by them with the greatest caution.  Those means are described (in the preamble to their charge) to be, that glorious enterprise which his late Majesty undertook, with an armed force, to deliver this kingdom from Popery and arbitrary power; the concurrence of many subjects of the realm, who came over with him in that enterprise, and of many others, of all ranks and orders, who appeared in arms in many parts of the kingdom in aid of that enterprise.