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General Stanhope was among the managers.  He begins his speech by a reference to the opinion of his fellow-managers, which he hoped had put beyond all doubt the limits and qualifications that the Commons had placed to their doctrines concerning the Revolution; yet, not satisfied with this general reference, after condemning the principle of non-resistance, which is asserted in the sermon without any exception, and stating, that, under the specious pretence of preaching a peaceable doctrine, Sacheverell and the Jacobites meant, in reality, to excite a rebellion in favor of the Pretender, he explicitly limits his ideas of resistance with the boundaries laid down by his colleagues, and by Mr. Burke.

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General Stanhope.

[Sidenote:  Rights of the subject and the crown equally legal.]

“The Constitution of England is founded upon compact; and the subjects of this kingdom have, in their several public and private capacities, as legal a title to what are their rights by law as a prince to the possession of his crown.

[Sidenote:  Justice of resistance founded on necessity.]

“Your Lordships, and most that hear me, are witnesses, and must remember the necessities of those times which brought about the Revolution:  that no other remedy was left to preserve our religion and liberties; that resistance was necessary, and consequently just.”

“Had the Doctor, in the remaining part of his sermon, preached up peace, quietness, and the like, and shown how happy we are under her Majesty’s administration, and exhorted obedience to it, he had never been called to answer a charge at your Lordships’ bar.  But the tenor of all his subsequent discourse is one continued invective against the government.”

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Mr. Walpole (afterwards Sir Robert) was one of the managers on this occasion.  He was an honorable man and a sound Whig.  He was not, as the Jacobites and discontented Whigs of his time have represented him, and as ill-informed people still represent him, a prodigal and corrupt minister.  They charged him, in their libels and seditious conversations, as having first reduced corruption to a system.  Such was their cant.  But he was far from governing by corruption.  He governed by party attachments.  The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable to him, perhaps, than to any minister who ever served the crown for so great a length of time.  He gained over very few from the opposition.  Without being a genius of the first class, he was an intelligent, prudent, and safe minister.  He loved peace, and he helped to communicate the same disposition to nations at least as warlike and restless as that in which he had the chief direction of affairs.  Though he served a master who was fond of martial fame, he