Wesley Corpus

Neither were those who then sat the House of Commons; no; nor one quarter of them. But suppose they had been the whole House of Commons, yea, or the whole Parliament; by what rule of logic will you prove that seven or eight hundred persons are the people of England? “Why, they are the delegates of the people; they are chosen by them.” No; not by one half, not by a quarter, not by a tenth part, of them. So that the people, in the only proper sense of the word, were innocent of the whole affair. 18. “But you will allow, the people gave the supreme power to King Charles the Second at the Restoration.” I will allow no such thing; unless by the people you mean General Monk and fifteen thousand soldiers. “However, you will not deny that the people gave the power to King William at the Revolution.” Nay, truly, I must deny this too. I cannot possibly allow it. Although I will not say that William the Third obtained the royal power as William the First did; although he did not claim it by right of conquest, which would have been an odious title; yet certain it is, that he did not receive it by any act or deed of the people. Their consent was neither obtained nor asked; they were never consulted in the matter. It was not therefore the people that gave him the power; no, nor even the Parliament. It was the Convention, and none else. “Who were the Convention?” They were a few hundred Lords and gentlemen, who, observing the desperate state of public affairs, met together on that important occasion. So that still we have no single instance in above seven hundred years of the people of England’s con veying the supreme power either to one or more persons. 19. Indeed I remember in all history, both ancient and modern, but one instance of supreme power conferred by the people; if we mean thereby, though not all the people, yet a great majority of them. This celebrated instance occurred at Naples, in the middle of the last century; where the people, properly speaking, that is, men, women, and children, claimed and exerted their natural right in favour of Thomas Aniello, (vulgarly called Masanello,) a young fisherman.